Trusting News founder Joy Mayer, to be at Radically Rural Sept. 22, says newsrooms must build trust or lose readers

Lack of trust in news organizations is a major challenge for journalism these days, and newsrooms must figure out how build trust with readers, listeners and viewers or lose their place in the community, says a key speaker for the Community Journalism track at next week's Radically Rural conference in Keene, New Hampshire.

"You can’t change what people think in general about journalism, but you can recognize that peoples’ suspicions about and frustrations with national journalism are often valid," longtime journalist and professor Joy Mayer. told Annika Kristiansen of the Keene Sentinel, an annual summit of rural stakeholders. It will be held online and in-person in Keene Sept. 22-23. Mayer will kick off the community journalism track at 10:30 a.m. Sept. 22. 

Meyer organized Trusting News, a collaboration of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute and the American Press Institute that seeks to increase trust between newsrooms and readers. "During her extensive years working in newsrooms and talking to her students, Mayer has watched as the narratives surrounding the media became more and more muddled in the minds of consumers across the country," Kristiansen reports. "The national political landscape and perception of national media have become increasingly polarized and tense. As a result, the burden has fallen on local journalists to take into account and be responsible for what their readers, viewers and listeners think about what journalism is."