#13

Mon, 05/27 11:07AM 25:12

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

newsrooms, people, journalists, journalism, story, engagement, community, important, audiences,

conversation, trust, comments, joy, organizations, consumers, news, demystifying, absolutely, link,
talk

SPEAKERS

Damian Radcliffe, Joy Mayer

D Damian Radcliffe 00:17

Hello and welcome to the Demystifying Media Podcast. I'm Damian Radcliffe, the Carolyn
S. Chambers Professor of Journalism at the University of Oregon, and my guest today is
Joy Mayer, director of the Trusting News Project, an initiative which seeks to better
understand elements of trust and distrust in the relationship between journalists and
consumers. Joy is the third speaker for spring 2018 and the Demystifying Media series, a
program which brings to the University of Oregon inspiring thinkers from across academia
and the creative industries. Joy, welcome.

J Joy Mayer 00:46

Thank you.

D Damian Radcliffe 00:47

So before we dive into our conversation, a quick bit of background about our guest. In
addition to her role with the Trusting News Project, Joy is also an adjunct faculty member
at the Poynter Institute and the University of Florida, the state in which she's based, as well
as being Community Manager for Gather, a product and platform to support community
minded journalists and other engagement professionals lead by the Agora Journalism
Center, at the University of Oregon. Prior to this, her roles include 12 years teaching at the

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 Missouri School of Journalism, where she created an engagement curriculum, taught web
and print design, and created a community outreach team and the newsroom of the
Columbia Missourian newspaper. I think I've got all that right.

J Joy Mayer 01:21

You do.

D Damian Radcliffe 01:22

Excellent. Well, Joy first of all thanks again for joining us. That's a very busy and
impressive résumé. I'm curious to start off by exploring whether there are any common
threads that kind of link all those different projects together.

J Joy Mayer 01:36

There are actually in ways that seem obvious to me but might not make as much sense to
other people but I'll give it a shot here. My work in journalism, I started in design. And for
me, design was always about how we package and deliver information, not just the craft
of telling a story. I always felt like I was an advocate for the news consumer as a designer.
You know, it's wonderful that we have this very long in depth story you've been working on
for months. But if we don't put effort into how the on ramps we're offering to readers to
the sort of invitation we're offering about, here's why you might want to consume this and
spend time here's why this is worth your time, then it doesn't do any good. And so I've
always felt like my role in journalism is to be a voice for the people who the work aims to
serve. So that led me from a print design to web design, and then to this field that within
journalism we call audience or community engagement. And it's really just all about
keeping the focus of the journalism on the people we aim to serve.

D Damian Radcliffe 02:32

So, does your design background shape that? I mean, we hear a lot about, for example,
design thinking as a kind of an ideology that organizations should be adopting more and
newsrooms are doing that, does that kind of philosophy seep into the engagement work
you're doing?

J Joy Mayer 02:47

I think so. And I think fundamentally, it's all about feedback. It's all about what we know
about how people consume our products, and designing products that are accessible and

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 helpful. Because if we don't have evidence that what we're doing is actually helpful, then
what's the point?

D Damian Radcliffe 03:04

Indeed, and I think a lot of people in this current day and age are questioning to some
extent, what is the point? We know that trust in journalism is at record lows, there are
increasing challenges of getting audiences to pay for content. And yet, as we move away
from advertising to subscription based models, that becomes increasingly important. So
given all of that, how does your work help some of the kind of big business challenges that
that the media is tackling in 2018?

J Joy Mayer 03:35

Well, we noticed that from work we've done with news consumers that it seems obvious,
but we do have data that show that people pay for information they trust. So you know,
the more likely people are to trust information, the more likely they are to pay for it. And
journalism has not had a tradition of being particularly responsive to audience concerns.
We almost wear as a badge of honor the fact that we do important work because it
deserves to exist, to be a little hyperbolic about it. And a culture in which we actively seek
and listen to feedback from our communities, is all too uncommon.

D Damian Radcliffe 04:12

So, how are newsrooms perhaps trying to shift that that culture and listen to communities
in ways that perhaps they haven't done in the past?

J Joy Mayer 04:20

I think that we're seeing some efforts by newsrooms to be more transparent about their
process and be proactive about addressing some of the community concerns. So one
example is the Washington Post has a new video series called "How to be a Journalist,"
and they're taking people behind the scenes. So, you know, I think it was the first episode
that talked to the people behind the way more stories that Alabama senator and so the
idea being, you know, one of the reporters was from Alabama. Like, here's how the story
originated, here's the process we followed, here's what we did to make sure we were sure
about the information we're presenting, and just sort of demystifying the the process of
journalism. And I get that's done to answer concerns that audience members have about
the credibility of the work.

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D Damian Radcliffe 05:06
Do you think that's one of the key objectives that newsrooms need to work towards is
demystifying that process?

J Joy Mayer 05:11

Absolutely. And it takes a real mind shift because we're not used to putting the focus on
ourselves. It's not part of our routines to build, we don't have as part of our process, the
question of what might people want to know? What ethical decisions did we make here?
How much work was put into this? And what might we take for granted about why we
decided to do this story that other people really don't take for granted at all.

D Damian Radcliffe 05:33

So how else are other newsrooms doing this?

J Joy Mayer 05:36

Newsrooms, that I'm working with are learning to look for patterns among user
complaints and questions, and realize that it's not beneath them to answer it. So if
somebody you know, if you're getting feedback from community members who say, you
know, why aren't you telling us this story, it must be because of your liberal bias, like, we
get a lot of that. And when there's a pattern of that, it's an opportunity for journalists to
say, let me explain to you why we're doing this story. Our only agenda with our political
news is to help you make smart decisions. And it's too easy when we get complaints, to
just blow them off, and to think and hope that if we keep doing good work, and putting
good journalism out into the universe, that people will find it and trust it, and select it over
less credible information. And that's just not the case, we have to invest in telling our own
story.

D Damian Radcliffe 06:27

I guess that's harder to do now, given the plethora of news sources, and information that
people have access to. So it makes that doubling down more important than ever.

J Joy Mayer 06:35

it's harder to stand out, but it's easier to tell our own story, because we have all these
platforms and feel sort of conversational. And that make it, platforms in which we talk

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 directly to our readers and our viewers and listeners. So it's not complicated. It just
requires a shift in perspective and priorities.

D Damian Radcliffe 06:53

And given that there's so much pressure on newsrooms today, you know, journalists, often,
there's a lot fewer of them in in newsrooms, and they're also charged with producing
content for a wide variety of different platforms. So how do you measure success in this
space?

J Joy Mayer 07:09

I think that we're watching to see how how community members respond to things. And
sometimes we can, you know, with with analytics data show this story was shared more
often or shared with more positive sentiments when some trust building strategies were
employed. Sometimes the metrics are counterintuitive. I have a couple of newsrooms have
been saying that getting fewer comments on a story is success. Like usually, we would put
this kind of story out into the world and get all kinds of blowback in the comments, but the
fact that we've properly explained it and inviting people to consume it, under an umbrella
of the certain kind of journalism we were doing, we didn't get any of that blowback. So
that's not easy to measure quantitatively, and fewer comments isn't usually a sign of
success, but in this case, it was. So we're having to just pay attention to what journalists
are telling us about how they see their relationship with their audience shifting.

D Damian Radcliffe 07:57

And then organizations that are doing this well, how did they manage to put this kind of
culture change in place?

J Joy Mayer 08:03

Well, I wouldn't say that that culture change happens easily in newsrooms at all. Very
often, what happens is that a couple people within a newsroom or even one person within
a newsroom will say, this is exciting to me, and it's low risk. It's easy to talk your boss into
into trying some of these things. Because while it might take just a tiny bit more time and
an adjustment in your process, it doesn't. You know, you're not going to risk losing
subscribers over it or, you know, you don't need a hue, you don't need to hire someone
extra to do it. This is just about expanding how you talk about the work that you do. So,
what's often happening is that one or two people get excited about it. And and then other
people say, Oh, man, you're getting, I saw that you got some really good feedback on

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 that. That's great. Why don't we try it again for this story, and it sort of spread slowly.

D Damian Radcliffe 08:48

And is this a technique that can help you reach new audiences? Or is this more about
doubling down with the existing audience that already either likes you or is more inclined
to want to trust you?

J Joy Mayer 09:00

I think its both. We are finding a public media station, I am working with the Pennsylvania
got an email a couple weeks ago from from one of their consumers who said, You know, I
see right on your homepage that you that you want to earn my trust, and I'm
disappointed in the story. And here's why. So, definitely the people who consume
something regularly will notice if you are actively and publicly demonstrating your desire
to earn trust. Just that can increase trust, because people see that that's a priority for you.
I also do think though, you know, we've seen some examples of where people share with
their friends things and say, Here's why I believe this or here's why this is a source that I
turned to regularly. So, I think it's both.

D Damian Radcliffe 09:45

I think it's also interesting that this is a tactic that is being deployed across different
sectors or across different verticals. So you alluded to working with a public radio station,
and we know, number of newspapers are doing this, you tweeted out this morning, or last
night about what the NBC were doing in this space. And it sounds as if these are cross
cutting issues that people across industry are trying to grapple with.

J Joy Mayer 10:09

Absolutely. I think it's, you know, the newsrooms that choose to work with me are
newsroom that care deeply about and are willing to invest in earning trust. So I don't I
don't want to imply that that is every newsroom, because it isn't some newsrooms are
perfectly happy business as usual. But we definitely have interest from from newsrooms of,
you know, small to large and with with USA Today, and the Christian Science Monitor, and
then, you know, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has both a TV station and a newspaper working with
me. So, you know, it, it definitely cuts across size of community, and purpose and platform.
And the strategies are interpreted differently for each something that would feel right at a
TV station in Washington DC is different than what would feel right at a community
newspaper in Oklahoma. So, there's a leeway with with the way we work with the

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 strategies for newsrooms to deploy them in ways that feel natural and feel like they would
fit their audiences.

D Damian Radcliffe 11:00

And are there particular things within their strategies that everybody should be doing?

J Joy Mayer 11:06

Number one is being responsive as you get feedback. Number one is, you know, when
when people leave, you know, let's just talk about Facebook comments and how often
newsrooms just ignore them. You know, people ask questions, they have complaints, they
make accusations, they throw things around, and the journalists are just absent. And bad
comment sections are just absolutely the fault of the newsroom and the responsibility for
the newsroom. If you have a bad comment, it's like you're throwing the party, and
stocking the bar and throwing open the door and then leaving and expecting people to be
on their best behavior. It just doesn't happen. So I think the the Big Easy wins that we see
are awesome when journalists just participate. And when somebody says, oh, you're just
you would never cover this other story. And you pop in and say, Oh, actually, allow me to
provide you with a link to the story that we did. Or that's interesting. Can you tell me more
about that, or thanks so much for the feedback, or let me explain to you why we have a
paywall. I know you're frustrated that you can't read this story. We're happy you've
enjoyed the 10 stories this month, and I've hit your limit. Here's why we need to charge you
money just be present in the conversation. And it's important to remember that when you
reply to commenters, you're not just replying to that person, you're replying to everyone
else who's reading the comments. And it's just this wonderful way to show that you're
listening and responsive.

D Damian Radcliffe 12:16

There was a trend a couple of years ago, where a number of organizations were switching
off comments, put it on their on their website, have you seen a continuation of that?
Perhaps a migration of those conversations to social platforms like Facebook, for
example?

J Joy Mayer 12:29

Sure, what you usually hear from newsrooms, when they decided to do that is that that's
not where the good conversations are happening anyway. And honestly, if a newsroom is
not willing to invest in moderation, and having a thoughtful policy about what kind of

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 conversation you want to encourage, and what kind of conversation you will and won't
allow, and if you're not going to be present, then I would rather you not have
conversation. I think that journalism is at its best a community in conversation with itself.
And if you are working in journalism, and not hosting and participating in conversations,
you're missing out on a real opportunity. But if you can't participate or won't dedicate the
resources to participating, then you definitely do more harm to your community and also
to your credibility by allowing comments sections to devolve.

D Damian Radcliffe 13:09

It's a bit of a generalization. But are you seeing with the organization as you're working
with that responsibility being integrated into the work that journalists are doing day to
day? Or are we looking at engagement teams, social media managers, and so forth,
taking on that responsibility and acting as a lead for the whole organization?

J Joy Mayer 13:26

That definitely depends on the size of the newsroom. Some newsrooms do have whole
teams that that work on these things. My goal with engagement work has always been to
work myself out of a job. You know, I think that engagement work needs to just be part of
how journalism is practice these days. That of course, if you're a reporter, then you will
stay involved in the comments under your story and that sort of thing. But as with
anything new, if you're trying to champion something new ideas often need a champion.
And so having people who are dedicated to it is important. And also these, the techniques
of engagement are not necessarily the skills journalists are typically taught, they're
typically cultivated. So moderating a conversation in a way that validates participation
isn't defensive, offers thoughtful explanations. That's, that's tricky. And so I think, having
teams that handle it, or individuals who handle it can be a way to really respect the the
expertise.

D Damian Radcliffe 14:18

And what about the migration of engagement to real world spaces as well? I think that's
an interesting trend that we've started to see in terms of growth of events, or open
editorial meetings and just kind of other opportunities to actually meet audiences in the
wild.

J Joy Mayer 14:34

Absolutely. That serves a lot of purposes, that can be a revenue strategy for some

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 newsrooms, it can be a way to sort of humanize the journalism. You know, here are the
people behind it, you know, just doing an interview, live on stage can be a wonderful way
to invite people into the process and see how things happen. It's also a really wonderful
way to host conversation. So if you think communities grappling with something, and one
of the newsrooms I was working with, hosted a really wonderful standing room only event
about issues facing their city, and then started a Facebook group after to sort of capture
the momentum around it and, and keep the conversation going. And that just changes
your role in that topic, then is not one of you know, stand back and observe and
document...

D Damian Radcliffe 15:14

You're a facilitator.

J Joy Mayer 15:15

More of a facilitator, we're right here with you we live here to this issue is important, who
needs to be at the table reflecting back to the community, the conversations that are
happening? It's a real opportunity.

D Damian Radcliffe 15:25

In my own research I've seen, particularly local organizations, perhaps happier to
embrace this idea of we are of the community not just reporting from it. Is that a
sentiment that you've also seen in your work with different newsrooms?

J Joy Mayer 15:39

Definitely. It definitely depends, however, on the sides of the community. How much
competition there is, what the what the relationship is, between those journalists and the
communities. I've definitely worked with newsrooms where, you know, people moderating
Facebook comments on the staff can just sign their first name, and everyone knows who
they are. Because that's, you know, they really do know many of the commenters.

D Damian Radcliffe 16:01

So, they sign off tweet with their first their first name?

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 J Joy Mayer 16:04
Or their initials or something, and everyone knows who it is. Absolutely. So clearly, the
relationship, if you work in community, journalism, engagement is nothing new, everyone
recognizes you, you know, you don't need to work on saying who needs to be at the table,
because they're, they're probably your dining room table. But then when I'm working with
a national news organization, where they do get hundreds of comments on things, even
responding to comments, is a different situation. And ability for, the nuance that people
see you with is lacking, as opposed to in a community where they say, Oh, that's just Joy.
I'm sure she, I know what she thinks about this. I know where her husband works,
whatever.

D Damian Radcliffe 16:37

And how she likes her coffee because we've been to the same coffee shop, everyday.

J Joy Mayer 16:40

Exactly. we get to in this, it's dangerous to treat engagement as if there are a lot of
absolutes. And it certainly is not one size fits all.

D Damian Radcliffe 16:48

For newsrooms who are interested in moving into this space, but are perhaps nervous or
apprehensive about doing so, recognizing that there is no cookie cutter model here as you
said, there's no one size fits all. How should they start this process? Both in terms of some
of the tools and techniques that they can use, but also where should they look for
inspiration?

J Joy Mayer 17:07

Well, the reason that we built Gather, as you mentioned in the intro, Gather is a platform
and a community to support people working in engaged journalism. And one of our
primary motivations for building it was to connect people doing this work because it can
feel very lonely, you've just been given a job and there's nobody else in your newsroom
knows how to do this, and you don't even know where to start. So there's a directory of
people involved a directory of case studies and resources and trainings. So letsgather.in is
where people can join that community. I do think that it's important to recognize that
even even where engagement still feels new, there are people who've been at it for a while
now. And so there are people you can turn to to say, you know, I'd like to host an event. I'd

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 like to improve the way I moderate comments, whatever it is, in your relationship with
your community, what needs the most improvement? Where do you think most trust can
be built? And start there. Don't start with things that you think you've seen other
newsrooms do the just because you think they're trendy or fancy. Start where you think
you can do the most good.

D Damian Radcliffe 18:02

What's interesting when you look at that cohort on Gather, is that is an international
community. So these issues are not just being grappled with in newsrooms within the US.

J Joy Mayer 18:12

Definitely not the issues might be different in different countries the same way the issues
are different in Washington, DC, and in small town, Oklahoma. But it's definitely the the
way people consume and interact with information is changing so drastically, and we've
got to adapt with it.

D Damian Radcliffe 18:28

You talked about some examples of some of the things that people are doing well, you
can give him some kind of broad ideas of things that people can do. And you highlighted
there a ton of case studies on Gather and on your Medium page and kind of elsewhere in
this space. What are the things that people are not doing, what are the sources of
frustration for you things that, that you are kind of working on to try and remedy?

J Joy Mayer 18:53

One thing I'm working with newsrooms on is, well, two things that are specific to the work
that I'm doing. One is that when journalists do talk about their process or explain their
work, they tend to do it very separately from the work. So maybe, maybe the editor will
read a column that will publish on Sundays that says, here's why we made this decision.
Well, but if you didn't explain to it is when people were on that story two days ago, and it
was getting all that attention, if there was no explanation there, a very small percentage
of those people are going to go read the Sunday column. So we need to take advantage
of attention, where we have it, and build the explanations and the trust building into that
story. The other thing that's very frustrating to me is when we don't tell our audiences
what we're doing, we don't label it. So we might say, we're going to work today we are,
we're going to address this issue, this controversial issue. Today, we're telling the story of
this, you know, one perspective on this issue. And for us, we think we're demonstrating our

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 good, fair and balanced approach. If we slide in a link to the story. That's not enough.
What we need to do in my view, is say, we know it's important to you to hear from
multiple perspectives on this very complicated issue. Today, we're bringing you this last
we brought you this in case you missed it, here's the link. That's not complicated. It can be
done in italics at the top of the story, it can be done as an intro on air, but we have to
label it so that people know that it's important to us, it's important to them, we're giving
them what they think they want. We're making it too hard on them as we think by seeing
that words are hyperlinked, they're going to recognize that that's our effort and balance.

D Damian Radcliffe 20:21

What else can we do in terms of the relationship with the communities we're reporting on?
or indeed, the the interviewees? Because I think there is more to be done in terms of news
literacy there, and also just expanding some of the editorial decisions. So why is it I speak
to a journalist for 45 minutes, and 10 seconds of that is on air or one quote from me 800
word article?

J Joy Mayer 20:44

Absolutely. I think that our sources deserve better transparency and explanation of that,
as to our audience members. I think that it's part of respecting the time of sources and the
attention of audiences to say, you know, here's why these sources were selected. Here's
why we talked to these people, here's where their expertise lies, and also just demystifying
that process of, you know, we talked to 20 people, you're going to see 10 in this story,
writing back to those other 10 people and saying, I really appreciate your time, you're not
going to see your words in the story. But I definitely you know, needed your, appreciate
your help with it. Just respecting that people don't know you as a journalist, their story,
they don't know you their time they value their attention. And being cognizant of that, and
bringing that attention and respect into our work is important.

D Damian Radcliffe 21:32

You know, I also, one of my pet peeves is, when you contribute to a story, and no one tells
you until you find it on Google yourself, just astonishes me.

21:41
No, absolutely. Just taking the time to send people a link. Also, as journalists, we have a
real opportunity to share our work with people who most want and need it. Why did we do

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 this story? Who wants it? journalists are hesitant sometimes to share links because they
think they're, you know, marketing their story or something. But honestly, did you not do
this? Because you had people in my case it was live? Who could better live their lives if
they had this information often? Or who shared their time with you? Or who are, you know,
for sure are hungry for this information? share the link with them?

D Damian Radcliffe 22:12

Would you be here on campus for a couple of days working with students and faculty. Do
you have particular advice for students, people who are starting out in this space? We
certainly have I think a lot of our student cohort in Oregon, are very interested in issues of
engagement and engaged journalism. What advice do you have for them?

J Joy Mayer 22:33

My advice is to in all conversations you have about journalism, make sure that you make it
clear to prospective employers to colleagues that you know who you're producing it for.
And that being of service to those people is your primary goal. I think that as newsrooms
evolve, it's just so important that as newsroom cultures evolve, they don't measure success
just by the standards of the craft of storytelling. They don't measure success based on
what their bosses and their colleagues think they measure success based on how well they
have served the community. Whether that's, you know how well you've served people who
need your travel guide to Bora Bora, or whether you've served people based on how
they're going to vote and election next week, either way, was this of use was this valuable?
And so I think my advice to students would be whatever kind of journalism or storytelling
you're going into, make it part of how you talk about journalism.

D Damian Radcliffe 23:27

It's almost working backward, with us working with the end goal in mind, which takes us
back to the idea of design thinking. Think about how this ends up at the end, rather than
about pleasing your higher ups.

J Joy Mayer 23:36

Who does it need to reach? What do you hope they do with it? And let that be how you
talk about the mission behind your work.

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D Damian Radcliffe 23:42
If we pour over your engagement crystal ball, how would you like to see the space of over
the next couple of years?

J Joy Mayer 23:51

I would like for journalists to feel like earning trust is a part of their day to day job, and
they know what to do about it. I would like for journalists to be anticipating what
misconceptions or voids of information exists around what they do and to see it as part of
their job to address it to proactively say, demonstrate their credibility, rather than just
hope that by doing good work, the audiences will find them.

D Damian Radcliffe 24:16

And how would you like audiences and news consumers to be feeling?

J Joy Mayer 24:19

I would like them to demand a lot of their journalists, I would like them to feel as if they
can ask questions and get them answered. I would like them to have a more nuanced
understanding of what journalism is. Very often when we talk to news consumers about
trust, they jump straight to national political news. And my response is usually to say talk
to me about the journalism, where you live and who's behind that and how that helps you
live your life. I think it's important that we have better conversations about the role
journalism plays in society.

D Damian Radcliffe 24:45

Excellent. Well, on that note, I think we will we will draw our conversation to a close. A
reminder to keep an eye out for Joy's full talk and other materials related to her
involvement in this program on our website: demystifying.uoregon.edu In the mean time it
just remains for me to thank my guest today, Joy Mayer, for joining us, until next time,

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