As politicians manipulate the facts and issue outright lies, now more than ever must the traditional media stand up for honesty and integrity. Reach Plc's East Midlands digital development editor Sam Dimmer explains the part local newspapers are playing in that process.
Gaining the trust of our readers and keeping it is one of our top priorities.
Without the trust of our readers there’s little point to what we do.
Our daily focus is ensuring we write news, sport and other interesting relevant digital content that our readers can engage with.
If they don’t trust us they won’t stay with us and that, as it would be for any business, would be a disaster.
Before we hit publish on an article we carefully consider the consequences of putting that information into the public domain. Now more than ever any mis-steps, whether factual or ethical, are quickly highlighted by the 100,000 people who like our Facebook page or the 109,000 people who follow us on Twitter.
Also the reality of digital publishing means that our actions have long-term consequences.
Today’s stories are no longer tomorrow’s chip paper. A digital article can live on for years.
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So we’re careful. We don’t go in all guns blazing.
We’ve spent 145 years earning a good reputation and we don’t want to destroy it. Many of the publications we work with are in the same situation – they’re local, they’re visible in their patch and they’re incredibly hard working.
By-and-large local news organisations are trusted. A few years ago I was knocking doors after a particularly unpleasant incident near where I live in Hinckley.
I introduced myself and was told by one woman that I wasn’t who I said I was. “Sam Dimmer is a blonde girl, after 5ft 4ins tall, with blue eyes,” I was told.
I assured her that, despite being flattered, Sam Dimmer is a 6ft tall hairy man with green eyes with bags underneath.
It turns out the 5ft 4in Sam Dimmer was Katie working for The Sun. She told me it was easier to speak to people if they thought she was local and represented a local organisation.
She also told me it didn’t work especially well when she knocked on Enid’s door, who happened to be my girlfriend’s nan.
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This practice still happens today. National news agencies will pretend to be us, because our readers trust us.
Ironically that competition keeps us honest, even when others aren’t behaving honestly.
Now anyone with a computer can set themselves up as a competitor. With a Wordpress website and a Facebook page many people will claim to be digital publishers, and their output is often legally dicey and ethically questionable.
They might share a viral video of a brawl and gain thousands of views without checking anything. Even the location where the incident took place.
Again, ironically, one thing that drives audience to our website is taking viral Facebook posts and dismantling their authenticity.
Last year a Facebook post from a Spotted page went viral. The poster claimed a homeless person had frozen to death on the streets of Leicester.
The response was dramatic. Tributes were paid, donations were pledged and politicians were blamed for the tragedy. One problem – it wasn’t true. We wrote about the fact that it was nonsense. 20,000 people read our story, with most of the traffic coming from Facebook.
What these new digital publishers do highlights our strengths. Our reporters are trained, experienced and locally based. People know who we are. We’re their neighbours, in some circumstances their friends. We’re cynics too. We don’t believe everything we’re told.
Over the next few weeks that trust, and probably cynicism, will be key. We will try and guide our readers through the election campaign without bias, simply reporting what is being said on the campaign trail and in the council chamber.
Recently Jeremy Corbyn came to Loughborough and we covered his visit in a variety of ways. By the end of the weekend supporters of both parties were accusing us of being biased, which means we’re doing a decent job of holding people to account in my eyes.