Newsweek and the Trust Project

There was never a time when all Americans trusted the media, but when the phrase fake news started becoming widespread as a way for some to describe the media, it showed us that something fundamental had changed in American public discourse. Newsweek has been around for over 90 years and has always been committed to fair, independent, and transparent journalism. But social media changed the dynamic. Technology platforms became intermediaries for readers, and it was no longer easy for people to distinguish what could be trusted in the torrent of real news, fake news, and outrage that drew attention.

Meanwhile, business models in the news industry were being overturned. We started as a weekly magazine, and while that is still going strong, we are now a top digital publisher. It became clear to us that we had to do more to show our readers why they could trust us. That’s when we began working with the Trust Project, which sets out a model for journalism built around transparency and good practice.

Newsweek pays very close attention to its audience. We want to ensure that what we publish meets the fundamental standards of quality journalism. The Trust Project uses eight indicators for trusted journalism — indicators that are based on in-depth research. We’ve worked with the Trust Project as a partner to integrate those indicators into our work at Newsweek. Transparency is essential to this. We took steps with the Trust Project to make sure readers will understand how a story came about, who wrote it, and what research it relies upon.

We have put a greater emphasis on being transparent about our business and our ownership and how we keep our journalism separate. We have worked with the Trust Project and we have highlighted the fact that we guarantee that a diversity of views is presented. That is in the research for every news piece as well as in our opinion section, where we go out of our way to seek diverse perspectives that will challenge all our readers.

We have strong left-leaning and right-leaning voices, all sharing opinions that provide the facts on which they are based. Engagement with our audience is a top priority for Newsweek, and in one of our innovations, we put out a fairness method that allows readers to tell us how fair they think our coverage has been so that we can learn from that feedback. The relationship with the Trust Project has been part of the journey, and as AI brings the promise of change, we have been working with them to help set industry standards on how to use AI in a way that is transparent and helps great journalism rather than undermining it.

We have learned a lot from working together with the Trust Project to become a partner. We are confident that it will stand us in good stead at a time of rapid change and that it can help us preserve that most precious asset of all — being trusted.