News & Updates

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Democracy’s immune system is in trouble. Here’s what we can do | Craig Newmark

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and the Craig Newmark Philanthropies and an early supporter of the Trust Project, lays out four principles for trustworthy reporting online in his CNN opinion piece: “Democracy’s immune system is in trouble. Here’s what we can do.”  Among corrections and honest reporting standards, he points out how simply hyperlinking to direct sources, as part of our Trust Indicators, helps readers to “easily assess the credibility of the news.” Our work joins others, such as the News Integrity Initiative at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, to help solve the issue of trust in news.    

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SCU spotlights the Trust Project

Look who’s on the homepage of Santa Clara University? The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, which hosts the Trust Project, calls SCU home, and we are happy to be a part of the family. In its three-part feature, SCU highlights former editors of The Santa Clara on the need for trust in journalism in “Can We?”; zooms in on award-winning filmmaker and SCU Professor Michael Whalen to discuss “the importance of creating trustworthy documentary films” in “Should We?”; then spotlights our upcoming event with Director Sally Lehrman at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose in “Will We?” 

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Trust Project aims to improve opinion of media | Todd Smith

“Can the media earn trust by being more transparent about its ethics and values?” In his column for the Mississippi Business Journal, Todd Smith writes about how we’re working to do just that in Trust Project aims to improve opinion of media “The project will standardize increased clarity so that news organizations, large and small, around the world can use it, and so that leading tech giants can find and incorporate it,” Smith writes. Smith also quotes Director Sally Lehrman and gives you great insight into what our next steps are: “I am confident that, over time, this will start to build,” …

Read moreTrust Project aims to improve opinion of media | Todd Smith

Trust Indicators collage

Trust Project partners say: ‘Welcome!’

The Trust Project’s collaborative nature spans the globe and is a unique hallmark of the consortium. We are proud to partner with German press agency dpa, The Economist, Facebook, The Globe and Mail, Google, the Independent Journal Review, Mic, Italy’s La Repubblica and La Stampa, Trinity Mirror and The Washington Post in the official launch of the Trust Indicators. Here’s how they announced their participation in the Trust Project. dpa The Economist Facebook The Globe and Mail Google La Repubblica La Stampa Mic Trinity Mirror

Michael Flynn

‘Storyful Podcast’: Can trust in the news be repaired?

Michael Flynn’s guilty plea in the FBI Russia probe puts the critical role of accurate, trustworthy news into sharper focus. Listen to Director Sally Lehrman and TTP partner Craig Newmark in The Storyful Podcast talk about how the Trust Project is working to build that trust. “We’ve got a lot of good things coming on so I’m very optimistic about the future of trustworthiness in news,” Newmark says in the podcast. “That’s the silver lining here because we do have a situation where we’re very concerned about trust. At the same time, there’s a swath of people who are avid news users who are actively …

Read more‘Storyful Podcast’: Can trust in the news be repaired?

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

Mic Publisher Cory Haik talks trust on ‘AirTalk’

Mic Publisher and Trust Project partner Cory Haik took to the podcast waves Nov. 30 on KPCC’s “AirTalk” to discuss how Mic and the Trust Project are working to build trust and transparency in news. In the segment, she details the challenge of trying to solve the problem of trust, the collaboration with the Trust Project and the reader demand for solutions like the Trust Indicators. “These indicators are things that most journalism organizations have — an ethics and standards guideline policy,” Haik says. “What we do as part of the Trust Indicators is we publish those in a very visible …

Read moreMic Publisher Cory Haik talks trust on ‘AirTalk’

The Trust Project's Sally Lehrman

A big week for the Trust Project

Since our official launch of the Trust Indicators on Nov. 16, it’s been an exciting ride. Director Sally Lehrman took a rare moment to reflect on this milestone in a LinkedIn article. In it, she poses the question that started it all: Could we use algorithms to help people find trustworthy journalism instead of cat videos and police mug shots? A few years, and an international collaboration of 75+ news organizations later, the answer is a resounding yes.

The Trust Project Indicators on devices

Leading News Outlets Establish Transparency Standards to Help Readers Identify Trustworthy News Sources

Media Contact Deborah Lohse | SCU Media Communications | [email protected] | 408-554-5121  Leading News Outlets Establish Transparency Standards to Help Readers Identify Trustworthy News Sources Google, Facebook, Bing and Twitter to use these “Trust Indicators” to highlight credible journalism SANTA CLARA, Calif., Nov. 16, 2017 —   At a time when the public’s trust in news is declining in much of the world, the news industry is launching a new set of transparency standards that help people easily assess the quality and reliability of journalism. Leading media companies representing dozens of news sites have begun to display Trust Indicators, which provide …

Read moreLeading News Outlets Establish Transparency Standards to Help Readers Identify Trustworthy News Sources

Trust Project Receives Funding to Develop Trust in Media

As part of an initiative to rebuild trust in journalism, The Knight Foundation has provided $100,000 of funding to the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics’ Trust Project. As reported in Forbes, the Trust Project is “developing open-source software toolkits to help newsrooms convey their commitment to ethics, independence and inclusive, accurate reporting to the public.” Stories about the funding are also writtten in The Miami Herald and EContent. In a recent article for Ozy.com, Sally Lehrman, director of Journalism Ethics, discusses the Trust Project’s efforts to hold news accountable and to “try to move the whole field in the direction of improving quality, rather than …

Read moreTrust Project Receives Funding to Develop Trust in Media

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