What journalists can do when their credibility is questioned (2024)

• Her conclusion is that journalists should not descend into automatic defense of journalism or stone silence because we don’t want news consumers to have blind trust ...

Last weekend, Uganda social media was inundated with commentary on two “hot” letters supposedly written by President Yoweri Museveni fingering Parliament’s leadership for alleged misdemeanors.

On Monday, the mainstream media jumped into the fray, with both Daily Monitor and New Vision publishing stories from the controversial letters.

Unfortunately, one of the letters was denied shortly after sunrise by the State House as a forgery – rightly or as a public relations gimmick. This left the mainstream media to carry the can! Social media activists, bloggers and citizen journalists simply moved on to the next trending subject, or found a new angle to the twist.

One of the things that caught my attention was a question by one of the tweeps (X-er?). Posting on X (formerly Twitter) the cover pages of Daily Monitor and New Vision of the day, @Zinjathropus6 asked: “…why would mainstream media quote the letter if it was fake? I am sure they do some due diligence before publishing”.

The post was viewed by 31.9K people. It had two reposts, one quote, 23 likes and three bookmarks. There are only four comments to the post, and three were rather disparaging of mainstream media. I reproduce them.

@AfricanDream169: “Am still sure the letter was real, but Mzee was advised it would not look good if he reacted days if not weeks after @NUP_Ug; it would give much credibility to its leadership and would show lack or no will of @NRMOnline in combating corruption, they then called it fake”.
@therealmukii: “Haven’t you seen them retract and apologise before?”
@ElishKaberuka: “Are you sure they do due diligence?...kekekeke!”
I shall not quote directly the fourth comment from @KenMutebi because it mentions personalities.
So, what should journalists do when their credibility is publicly questioned?

“Trusting News Project” of the American Press Institute (API) recently engaged with this subject. While acknowledging that journalists routinely face accusations of bias or unprofessionalism – sometimes unfounded or merely intended to deflect attention – they think journalists shouldn’t just shrug off accusations. Rather, they should use the opportunity to engage their audiences.

Trusting News director, Joy Mayer’s article titled, “Three strategies for responding to accusations of bias”, asks: “What attacks should you defend against and what should you ignore? How much should you say? Should you fact-check accusations? And, what do you do if there’s some truth to them?”
She makes three recommendations.

First, see the accusations as an opportunity to explain how the newsroom works and how stories are handled. Daily Monitor would, for instance, take the opportunity to share with critics and the wider public the reporter-editor checklist as tools of quality control in the newsroom.

Second, create a counter narrative to explain the ethical values and professional grounding of your media house. “It’s a good idea to talk about your commitment to independence and fairness. It’s even better to point to examples. Think of it as evidence. What does it look like to strive for fairness, and what kind of journalism does that effort produce? Talk about your values, but also get specific.”

Third, find the truth in the accusations and deal with it. In the instant case of “presidential letters”, editors may want to ask themselves whether due diligence was actually done, whether different decisions should have been taken on the stories, whether they let their guard down, or whether they got carried away by the social media hype which is part of their ecosystem?

She notes: “…if your goal is to provide even-handed coverage that feels fair across the political spectrum in your community, it’s worth reflecting on asking how well you’re doing it. Who feels seen and understood by your coverage, and who feels misrepresented or neglected? Now is a good time for humility and examination.”

Her conclusion is that journalists should not descend into automatic defense of journalism or stone silence because we don’t want news consumers to have blind trust in anything labeled as news!

“It’s smart for people to want to know the values and opinions that drive information, and journalists should more often validate people’s skepticism and suspicion. Journalists SHOULD be held accountable for fairness and SHOULD take time to explain their ethics and decision-making,” she says.

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