How do you know if a news site (or any site for that matter) is giving you good information or if they’re pulling your leg? Like most questions about misinformation, the answer is a bit tricky. Fortunately, the good folks at The Trust Project have devised an easy-to-use tool for ferreting out misinformation called the 8 Trust Indicators.

I’m going to be using these indicators to get a feel for just how legitimate two news sources from Arizona are. I’ve never been to Arizona and am completely unfamiliar with their local news, so this is a great test of the indicators as I’ll bring minimal bias to this test. Before we begin, let’s take a look at the indicators:

The 8 Trust Indicators

The 8 Trust Indicators are a set of things to consider when determining if a news source is trustworthy. They peel pack each article to reveal who’s bringing you this story and why. I strongly recommend you spend some time familiarizing yourself with them if they’re new to you. A full analysis of the indicators is beyond the scope of this post, but here’s a quick glimpse. They are:

• Best Practices – Do you know who’s behind the news?
• Journalist Expertise – Who made this?
• Labels – News? Opinion? Or what?
• References – What’s their source?
• Methods – How was it built?
• Locally Sourced – Do they know you? Your community?
• Diverse Voices – Who’s in the news? Who’s missing?
• Actionable Feedback – Does this news site listen to me?

Now let’s put these indicators to use in two case studies involving Arizona news outlets.

The Arizona Silver Belt

First up is the Arizona Silver Belt. I’ll note again that I’ve never in my life read the Silver Belt, so I’m wide-eyed and ready to spot anything that looks amiss. The first thing I notice is an abundance of ads. I know news organizations have to pay the bills somehow, but there really are a lot to deal with here. My computer literally stopped in its tracks while all the ads loaded. It’s an old computer, so that happens from time to time, but it’s worth noting. Now, let’s go down the list:

• Best Practices

Trying to find information regarding the policies in place for reporting here is a bit tough. I scrolled down to the footer and found a Terms & Conditions link, which takes you to a pretty general website T&C, but with an ad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad on a T&C page before.

I also see at the bottom “©2023 News Media Corporation.” A quick bit of lateral reading uncovers that this is in fact a news conglomerate that produces 34 different local newspapers across the country. The website for NMC does not actually have an SSL certificate, which is a little troubling.

The Wikipedia entry for the Silver Belt says it’s been around since 1878, and the Google search results don’t show a history of scandals involving the paper.

• Journalist Expertise

The top story on the day I am accessing the site (April 23, 2023) is Globe Council addresses infrastructure issues. That’s possibly the most local-news headline I’ve ever read, certainly not sensationalist. It’s written by David Sowders of the Arizona Silver Belt and the accompanying photo is credited to him as well.

Based on his LinkedIn profile, it looks like Mr. Sowders has been a reporter in Arizona for at least 9 years, almost 3 of which are with The Silver Belt. This lends credibility since it establishes him as local. He also seems to write a lot of the stories about city council goings-on, so he seems pretty established.

• Labels

You’d be hard pressed to find an errant opinion on the Sun Belt’s website. Trending stories are as follows:

• April 4-10 Arrest Reports
• Gas leak leads to evacuation at Globe PD
• Carmen Slough Celebrates 109th birthday

As you can see, there’s little room for doubt that this is a news site that focuses on news. There is a section called “Viewpoints” in the dropdown menu, where I though I might find something spicy, but there is only one article there and it’s about a sorority that would like to thank a fellow named Ian for helping commemorate one of their sisters who passed away.

• References

For the article about the infrastructure issues, it is implied that Mr. Sowders gathered this information from a city council meeting, but but I suppose it wasn’t explicitly stated that he did. There was a quote from council member Mike Pastor included, and his name checks out as a member.

• Methods

As stated above, this seems like a cut-and-dry report from a city council meeting. Perhaps he recorded it, but he was most likely in attendance as well. All the facts contained in the piece seem to be derived from that one meeting with no additional conjecture.

• Locally Sourced

David Sowders regularly contributes to the Silver Belt. As mentioned in his bio, he’s been in the Arizona journalism scene for at least 9 years, so he’s a definite local.

• Diverse Voices

It does seem that there is a lack of diverse voices here. There are only a couple reporters who regularly contribute and there’s not a lot of input from the community. Demographically speaking, Globe is a strikingly white city, but that doesn’t mean there are no stories to be told here. I rate this one a 6/10 for at least including that birthday party.

• Actionable Feedback

Remember when I mentioned the Viewpoints section where the sorority was giving a big thanks to Ian? That one lonely post was from 2017. It seems like the Silver Belt really doesn’t go out of its way to engage with readers, which could be problematic for establishing trust as a news source. There is a sense of a news bubble where maybe they’re just not digging enough for community engagement.

East Arizona News

Up next is East Arizona News, which I’m approaching just a tad differently. Before I even engage with the site, I’m looking them up. The problem here, of course, is “East Arizona News” is a very vague search term that nets a lot of different news outlets in East Arizona. It’s worth noting, however, that the outlets website, eastarizonanews.com does not appear anywhere near the top of Google search results.

• Best Practices

East Arizona News claims to be the product of Metric Media, a network of local news sites whose stated aim is to “fill the void of community news after years of decline in local reporting by legacy media.” Let’s get lateral. Search results turn up that Metric Media is in fact a series of local news sites but it doesn’t take long to find a bit of dirt on their incentives.

When the New York Times clearly defines you as “Mimicking local news” in a headline, that’s usually a really bad sign for your trustworthiness. I feel like this is a big enough red flag that we could just dismiss anything this site has to offer, but for the sake of the blog (#content), let’s continue.

• Journalist Expertise

This should be good. The lead story at time of writing is titled “Schweikert, Smith: Americans Will Struggle to Afford Accounting and Paperwork Prep Needed to Comply with Democrats’ New IRS Reporting Scheme” and is only credited to East Arizona News, no reporter.

Let’s look at this for a minute before we even address the contents. Not crediting a reporter is something a news outlet may do when they release a statement that is meant to represent the whole editorial board or something like that. This article is presented as a story about two representatives who criticize “Democrats” and their “scheme.” This language tells you a lot about incentives. They’re clearly defining who they oppose and calling their plan a scheme.

This is a highlight of the type of language used here (note, this is not a quote from one of the representatives in the headline, it is from the article’s main text):

Democrats’ $600 threshold for reporting Venmo payments will make next tax season even worse by involving the IRS every time an American sells a couch, concert ticket, or pays the neighbor to mow the lawn.

East Arizona News, Schweikert, Smith: Americans Will Struggle to Afford Accounting and Paperwork Prep Needed to Comply with Democrats’ New IRS Reporting Scheme

More on this later in the References section…

• Labels

How is this labeled? As opinionated as it feels, this is actually labeled Local Government. Criticizing the Biden administration and the IRS doesn’t feel like “Local Government,” nor does it feel like news. There is clearly a degree of manipulation happening here.

• References

This is my favorite part. The aisle seat on a long flight. The nacho that’s cheese-glued to three others but still only counts as one. You know, the good stuff.

At the bottom of the article, there is a link that reads: Original source can be found here. Did you click that? You probably don’t have to to know it takes you somewhere great. Specifically, to Congressman David Schweikert’s website, where this whole article exists as a message from the Congressman. Well I guess there’s your journalist.

• Methods

The methods for our first example are pretty clear. It’s campaign propaganda for Congressman David Schweikert and its origins and reason for existing on a “news” site are murky.

For a second look at methods, let’s turn to an article titled “Ducey signs voter fraud measure: ‘Arizona is a leader in election integrity’.” It is credited to an Andy Ngheim. Using lateral reading (and our Holmesian powers of inductive reasoning), let’s try to ascertain how it came to be. A search on his name on muckrack.com returns a lot of hits for the Madison/St. Clair Record, a local news outlet near St. Louis, MO. He writes for them extensively, but also news outlets in Austin, Houston, and Kern Valley, CA. Plenty of journalists do freelance work, so this feels pretty normal.

The only source given is a press release from former Governor Ducey’s office. Of note: this story is about election security, which The New York Times says is a very common topic in these Metric Media fews sites. I even discovered that Mr. Ngheim writes about one article per month in one of these Metric papers near me way over in Michigan, which is a great segue to the next indicator.

• Locally Sourced

Is any of this locally sourced? Well, Congressman Schweikert is certainly “representative” of Arizona (the 1st congressional district, to be precise), but what about Andy Ngheim? Muckrack.com shows that he mainly writes in the St. Louis area and he writes monthly in Southwest Michigan. I think it’s safe to assume that Mr. Ngheim is not someone I would consider “local.”

• Diverse Voices

To say that East Arizona News has a diversity issue is perhaps true, but only as a technicality. There’s really just… very little news. Most of the site’s articles are either press releases or just data points about business registrations, migration, and PSA’s seemingly scraped off local social media accounts for libraries and the like. I though maybe I’d see something more in the “Ethics” section, but it’s literally a long line of articles about when Catholic masses are scheduled. That’s it.

• Actionable Feedback

Can you reach East Arizona News? Sure. But why? The site lists news@eastarizonanews.com as a contact method if you have a scoop or opinion, but I don’t see a single thing on their site that leads me to believe that they engage with any readers. There are no published opinions, no corrections, really just nothing that looks like a local citizen of East Arizona had any role in creating.

The Verdict

The Arizona Silver Belt seems like a perfectly legitimate (if unimaginably unexciting) local news site. It features local reporters, useful local information, and very little pizzazz. In stark contrast, East Arizona News offers very little of substance to any reader thirsty for local news.

These tools certainly do work, but only if you’re willing to apply them. I suppose the biggest takeaway here is that, if you’re not familiar with a news source, don’t just assume they’re legitimate because the website looks good. Check the site with some lateral reading and dig just a bit to see why that article showed up in front of you.

The post A Tale of Two Papers appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.

When considering a career in journalism, one must ponder such questions as “Can I make a real difference?,” “How will I survive on such meager pay?,” and “What am I even doing with my life?,” but perhaps my most vexing concern is “How will I get through to those that simply don’t trust the media?”

Where We’re At

People trust the media less now than at any time in the last 40 years. In a way, it’s hard for me to conceptualize that people whose sole job is supposed to be informing the public and shedding light on injustices, corruption, and new discoveries are some of the least-trusted people in the world. But alas, a Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2021 concluded that between 2016 and 2021, public trust in the media (in general) dropped from 76% to 58%. I know there are some bad actors in the field, but even if you could correct for that, 58% is shockingly low. So what gives?

How It Started

Looking further into the Pew data, Democrats’ trust in media has declined somewhat, but around 2016, Republican’s trust of the media plummeted from 70% to 35%. Trust had been eroding bit by bit since 9/11, when every newsroom in America devoted everything to the terrorist attacks. What followed however was a slew of decisions based on ratings rather than facts.

The coverage of the US invasion of Iraq didn’t do any favors for building trust in the media either, with a rather strong pro-invasion bias appearing in much of the media. Additionally, the massive scope of the new 24-hour news cycle was riddled with blunders such as Geraldo Rivera’s accidental disclosure of classified battle plans.

The drastic cut in trust around 2016 however is a direct result of Donald Trump’s continuous attacks on news organizations such as The New York Times and Washington Post. In addition to creating nicknames such as “The Failing New York Times,” he went so far as to call the news media “the enemy of the American people.”

Trump’s war on the media has always resonated with his supporters, who often see any criticism of Trump as unfair and politically motivated.

The Role of Misinformation

Arguably, Donald Trump’s political career began with an infamous bit of misinformation. As early as 2011, Donald Trump played a key role in spreading the misinformation that President Barack Obama was not born in the US. As more and more Republican voters bought into this conspiracy theory (which was repeatedly debunked), Trump saw a winning formula for getting the support he needed to secure the Republican nomination for 2016. What followed was a milieu of falsehoods such as:

• The size of the crowd for his inauguration

• The path of Hurricane Dorian

• The severity of COVID-19

• Windmills cause cancer

or even

• Who won the 2020 election

All of this is to say that Donald Trump did more to normalize conspiratorial thinking and distrust of experts (especially journalists) than anyone in modern history and the damage he’s done will take some time to repair.

Where We’re Headed

As we approach Donald Trump’s potential indictment this week, his supporters may soon be faced with yet another line they’ll have to cross: Once Trump is has been arrested, will they still support him? Inevitably, many will. He’s been impeached twice, banned from social media platforms, lost an election, incited a coup attempt, and was even dumped by longtime ally Fox News. Each time, he seems to bounce back, barely shedding any supporters.

What This All Means To Me

I recognize that it’s easy to vilify your political opponents in this increasingly polarized climate. It’s easy and even a little satisfying to fall into a pattern of simply trying to score points on the other side, and I admit I’ve been guilty of that on occasion (see @theothersean on Twitter).

That said, my relationship with Donald Trump’s assault on truth is not just one of mere disagreement. I am not blogging about the man because I didn’t vote for him or because I disagree with him on, well, just about everything.

I’m shining a light on him particularly because as a journalist, it is literally my job to clean up his mess.

The post Donald Trump Tried To Break the Media with “Fake News,” And Someone’s Got To Fix It appeared first on Sean McMillan's blog.