How Can Journalists Build Trust with Their Sources?

Journalists play an important role in society, helping to educate the public about events and issues that affect them and their lives. The importance of their roles has increased significantly as polarization spreads around the world, impacting new democracies and well-established ones alike. Consequently, trust in journalists, news, and media has declined worldwide. The impact of this loss of trustworthiness is especially felt in the United States, which a comprehensive survey from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford ranked dead-last. That’s 29 percent among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries. Global concerns about false and misleading information remains high.

The results of the Reuter Institute survey — far from the first to examine this phenomenon — offer significant evidence that the current landscape poses significant challenges for journalists no matter where they might live and work. Despite these challenges, a journalist’s relationship with their sources remains paramount and safeguarding these sources should be taken seriously.

According to Jennifer Sizeland, who has more than 12 years of experience writing for the BBC and such publications as Metro and Manchester Mill, there are several different ways that journalists can build trust with their sources.

“We need to take our job of protecting our sources seriously,” she recently wrote in a piece for the International Journalists’ Network. “Along with ensuring the safety of interviewees, we must give their stories a platform, put them into context, and respect them. The element that binds all this together is trust. If we as journalists can encourage sources to trust us, then that will translate into better information, which means better stories.”

Among her recommendations:

• Revealing the publication and its politics, which might or might not affect their decision to speak with you.

• Sharing your portfolio to establish your credibility, especially if you’ve written stories with an angle similar to theirs.

• Addressing concerns and asking any questions the source might have to put them at ease about working with you.

• Being patient, especially with those who aren’t comfortable speaking on the record right away.

• Communicating the angle of the story so that a source won’t read it later with different expectations.

• Avoid working with clickbait publications because those that use clickbait tactics are not the right places to use vulnerable sources.

• Reflecting a source’s opinion and not misrepresenting their comments.

Of course, journalists cannot force their sources to go on the record. Before beginning an interview, the ground rules between a journalist and their source should be absolutely clear and an agreement on how quotes or information will be attributed should be reached. A source cannot choose to say something is off the record after the terms of the agreement are agreed upon.

Most sources don’t know what to expect from an interview so it helps to communicate what the story is and its scope, the source’s role in the story, how much of what they say will be included in the final piece, how the story will be presented, what kind of reaction publishing the story will invite, and, most importantly, why the source should trust the journalist in the first place.

On the flip side, a journalist cannot force the source to go on the record after agreeing to an interview on background, deep background or off the record. The journalist is bound to protect the source’s anonymity unless their source releases them from their confidentiality agreement.

Journalists may rely on source confidentiality to build trust with their sources, especially in cases when sources may require anonymity to protect them from physical, economic or professional reprisals. Source confidentiality is a right accorded to journalists by the laws of many nations, including international law.

Before a piece is written, a journalist and their editor must agree whether they should grant a source anonymity based on the following criteria:

• The source’s position

• The information the source provides

• The reason why the source might wish to remain unnamed

• Why the source is willing to provide their information

The Associated Press Stylebook recommends to always explain why a source requested anomymity and to describe the source’s motive for disclosing that information when necessary. A journalist’s story must always provide attribution that establishes the source’s credibility to show how and why the source has the information they are sharing with the journalist and, of course, the general public at large.

It takes more than providing facts to be a good journalist. A good journalist must also build trust in the communities they serve and with the sources with whom they speak, who may sometimes share information with significant risks.