Trusting News, a nonprofit that trains journalists and newsrooms on how to actively build trust, highlighted Open Campus’s work this week.
Back in March, we wrote a blog post about why local higher-ed reporting matters. It’s core to our model, and it’s why we are working to put reporters on the beat around America. And as the Trump administration continues to put political, financial, and regulatory pressure on colleges, local reporting that explains what at stake matters now more than ever.
Trusting News pointed to this blog post as an example of how newsrooms can explain the relevance of their coverage to readers — rather than assuming everyone understands:
Whether you’re covering the economy, local politics or healthcare, we encourage you to continually be asking:
- How is this relevant to the people you aim to serve?
- Will the connections be obvious to your entire audience?
- How can you make the relevance more explicitly clear?
Can you get specific in painting a picture of how different policy changes could impact people’s lives? Can the focus of coverage be more on the overall impact, versus just the latest update?
Trusting News also featured the Higher Ed Under Pressure Project, our effort to expand the reach of our coaching and policy analysis to more local newsrooms around the country. Four dozen have signed up since we began it in March.