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Trust between journalists and their sources

Offentliggjort 07/29/2008

Af Søren Schultz Jørgensen og Annegrete Skovbjerg

ANALYSE: Translation: Kirsten Sparre

”Generally, I think that journalists do a good job considering the production demands put on them. I can live with the occasional mistake once in a while. But if it happens systematically, I would consider whether it should have consequences in the form of letters to the editor or withdrawing my cooperation.” (Survey respondent).

Findings at a glance

Citizens are more critical of journalists than the sources who appear in the media: 59 per cent of the Danes believe that journalists often distort the truth. Only 42 per cent of the sources hold the same view.

There is a positive view of the media’s general credibility. 77 per cent of the media’s sources believe that the media in general are credible. That view is shared by 68 per cent of the population.

In other words, the sources are consistently more positive about journalists and the media than the general population.

Over a quarter of the sources who took part in the survey say that the interview they took part in changed their view of how journalists work. The majority of these respondents have become more positive.

Mutual trust
Trust is a fundamental parameter for the interaction between journalists and their sources. (Kristensen, 2004: p. 76). Journalists must trust that sources tell the truth. The sources must have faith that the journalist will use information and quotes in a sensible way. If mutual trust does not exist between the two parties - also after the interview is over - the opportunity to maintain the relationship diminishes. Thereby the source loses a communication channel. And the journalist may lose an important informant.

For newspapers in general, trust and credibility can turn out to be an increasingly important factor in being an attractive channel for the sources and allow the newspapers to keep their role as gatekeepers in the news system (Sahlstrand, 2000: p. 198).

Without a central gatekeeping function it can be difficult to hold on to readers as well as advertisers. In a market situation where professional sources increasingly bypass traditional media in their attempts to get directly in touch with their target groups, the trust in media - and the credibility of newspapers - can be crucial. Not only with regards to the quality of journalism but also with regards to economic opportunities for individual media organisations.

American studies have shown that there is a close link between the trust that sources have in a media organisation’s journalists and the general credibility of the media amongst readers and in the market more generally. (Meyer, 2004: p. 99)

In the questionnaire sent to respondents in our survey there were three questions about trust - two general questions and one that specifically dealt with the interview the respondent had taken part in.

Below we detail the answers to these questions and compare them with a number of questions that have been answered by a group that is representative of the Danish population.

Sources trust the media more than the general population
How do sources look at the media - and how does the general population look at the media? Do the two groups have the same degree of trust or distrust of journalists and the media? Do media insiders and media outsiders have different views of the media?

Answering questiongs such as these can provide an indication of how interaction with journalists affects the view sources have of journalists and their working processes.

In the survey of the Danish population that was part of the project, respondents were asked to indicate on a five-point scale how much they agreed or disagreed with two general statements that the respondents to the survey amongst sources had already been confronted with:

Journalists often distort the truth when they make their stories
The news stories in Danish newspapers, television and radio are generally quite credible

The figure below compares the views of the sources and the general population to the question of whether journalists distort the truth:

Figure a:

As the figure shows, there is a clear difference between the view of journalists held by sources and by the general population. Almost six of 10 Danes believe to some degree that journalists are distorting the truth whilst only four out of 10 sources share that view.

Communal wisdom holds that journalists rank roughly along used car salesmen in terms of credibility. This popular view is supported by regular popularity and credibility assessments where journalists rank just below estate agents and the advertising industry (IFKA 2006). An interesting point in this context is that journalists are considered most trustworthy by those who get most of their information from newspapers. Credibility appears to improve proportionately with the firsthand knowledge people have of the journalist’s final product.

The findings from this research seem to confirm this link - with the important addition that people who have been in direct contact with and involved in the journalistic work process also have greater trust in journalists than the general population.

The differences between sources and the general population are not so pronounced when it comes to the question of the general credibility of the media. Almost eight out of 10 sources in the survey believe that the news stories in Danish media in general are credible. This opinion is shared by almost seven out of 10 in the general population.

Sources are in general more trustful than the population when it comes to the view of how the media produce news. And answers to both questions indicated that trust in the media and the assessment of the media’s credibility increases the closer you have been to journalists and the journalistic working process.

The views of inexperienced sources are more extreme than those of experienced sources. Among the former, a higher proportion finds the credibility of the media to be very high just as a higher proportion finds the credibility of the media to be very low. Experienced sources are less polarised in their view of the media and journalists, and one of the reasons could be that through their many interactions with journalists they have come to have a more pragmatic and nuanced view of the media.

At first glance it seems contradictory that around 40 per cent of the sources believe that journalists distort the truth, and at the same time 77 per cent find that in general the news are credible. In other words, there appears to be a relatively high degree of distrust in the work of individual journalists whereas the experience of the overall body of journalistic products is generally positive.

One explanation of this phenomenon could be that sources are pragmatists. That some journalists will have a tendency to distort the truth once in a while does not mean that the source believes that all journalists do it all the time. And for a very experienced source it would be hard to justify the view that the media in general can not be trusted. Arguing that would force the source to label his own primary communication channel as illegitimate.

Net surplus in the trust account
How does the sources look at journalists after going through an interview experience? Is it possible during one interview to change the source’s perception of journalistic work methods and his or her trust in the journalistic profession as a whole, or do sources come through the interview process completely unaffected?

Figure d:

The figure shows a surplus on the balance of trust: The interview experience is actually likely to make sources more positive than they were before.

But we are talking about very small margins: Three out of four sources actually appear quite unaffected by the whole experience. However, it is important to note that sources were not asked to rate their general trust in journalists but just whether their attitudes had changed from taking part in one particular interview experience.

Overall, a little more than a quarter of the sources have changed their views of how journalists work to a smaller or larger degree.

Figure e:

The reason why very experienced sources do not change their views is probably very simple , namely that the experience of one interview does not matter very much if you are approached for interview up to 50 times per month. For experienced sources it would take a lot of very bad or very good concrete experiences to change their general views.

Meanwhile, inexperienced sources affect the results in a positive direction. As the interaction between journalists and sources has become more professionalised, you could imagine that inexperienced sources would feel ”run over” by their meeting with the professional media machine, and that journalists would be less receptive to amateur sources because they are so used to dealing with professional sources.

But inexperienced sources tend to be more positive. The explanation could be that inexperienced sources are often asked to relay their own experiences of the matter in question and are not direct parties to a conflict. Therefore they are unlikely to be subjected to the same kind of pressure that is applied to professional and experienced sources.

As mentioned previously, the findings indicate that trust in the media and journalists tend to grow as sources have more and concrete experiences with the media. Newspaper readers are more positive towards the media than people who do not read newspapers, and sources are more positive than non-sources. It appears to be good news for daily newspapers and their journalists: If they only had the capacity to interview each and every citizen in the country, the reputation of the journalistic profession could significantly rise over that of advertisers and estate agents.

But the key question obviously is whether the high degree of trust in the media, and the fact that trust in journalists grows proportionately with the number of interview experiences, only can be interpreted positively. And whether in the final analysis this state of affairs is an indication of high journalistic quality.

When a source trusts the journalist, it could be because the journalist habitually and uncritically conveys what the source wants to say. In other words, the source trusts the journalist because the journalist is not particularly critical or independent. When contacts between sources and journalists are as frequent and intense as indicated by this survey, it is relevant to ask whether the high degree of trust between sources and journalists in fact is an indication that the relationship has become too close.

In terms of assessing journalistic quality, the trust the source has in the journalist is definitely one of the parameters that should be considered carefully. Without factuality, impartiality and a critical approach, trust is not necessarily sustainable in the long run. (Sahlstrand, 2000: p. 202)

Read more about the report

Bibliograhy:

IFKA (2006): De professionelles omd�mme. Analyse af danskernes vurdering af 16 udvalgte branchers trov�rdighed og etiske standard fra 1999 til 2005 (The reputation of professions. An analysis of the Danes’ assessment of 16 professions’ credibility and ethical standards from 1999 to 2005), Copenhagen

Kristensen, Nete N�rgaard (2004): Journalists og kilder - slinger i valsen (Journalists and sources - who leads who?), Aarhus: Forlaget Ajour

Philip Meyer (2004): The Vanishing Newspaper, University of Missouri Press

Sahlstrand, Anders (2000): De synliga (The visible), Stockholm University

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