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TRANSPARENCY IN JOURNALISM Credibility and trustworthiness in the digital future

Klaus Meier

Although transparency has long been regarded as a criterion for journalistic quality, it has a significantly greater potential in the Internet, which is something that causes uncertainty in journalistic practice and in the theory of journalism. This paper analyses different understandings and instruments of transparency understood as an openness that journalists and newsrooms can themselves produce towards their audience. The basis for this is a transparency framework as well as case studies in different countries and media systems. The traditional ombudsman, for instance, is confronted with the potential of the transparent newsroom on the Internet with webcasts of conferences, editorial blogs and social networking. The transparency instruments are categorised in a three-dimensional matrix model: traditional or digital approach one-way or interactive communication openness in the journalistic product or in the journalistic process. The greatest challenge is to lay open the journalistic processes. If a newsroom agrees to adopt this approach, it must inevitably turn the spotlight on itself: self-coverage complements the usual news coverage. Objectivity and impartiality are no quality criteria for self-coverage. Instead, it is more a case of demonstrating trustworthiness by self-reflection and developing a relationship with the audience.

KEYWORDS audience relationship management; credibility; journalism; selfcoverage; transparency; trustworthiness

Introduction The protagonists of greater transparency in journalism are going all out: They want to reform journalism from bottom to top. For example, already at the beginning of the 1990s Steven A. Smith (2005; 2009) called for an end to the fortress newsroom and as chief editor of the US daily newspaper Spokesman-Review from 2005 to 2008 launched the transparent newsroom initiative: He broadcast editorial conferences live on the Web and revealed the reasons for editorial decisions in a blog. In Sweden, the Aktuellt news magazine of the SVT public broadcasting corporation launched the ppen redaktion initiative in 2007 and presented several video clips of editorial meetings as well as other internal discussions in the Internet on a daily basis for two years. We let the users take part in our editorial process, said newsroom manager Eva Landahl (2008). Dialogue is the basis of our project. In the case of the ARD Tagesschau newsroom in Germany, more than 70 TV and online journalists including all chief editors produce a blog about their work under the motto behind the news. This includes lively discussions concerning the selection of topics for the programmes. For example, chief editor Kai Gniffke wrote on 21 July 2009 about the growing summer newshole in the 8.00 p.m. Tagesschau news

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programme: To be honest, we could have left out every one, yes every single one, of the topics covered in todays programme. He received praise from users and criticism from slightly offended colleagues. It is not just newsrooms in different parts of the world with different journalistic traditions that are talking increasingly about transparency and experimenting with it in their daily work (Deggans, 2006; Smolkin, 2006; Elia, 2008). Journalism scholars are also focusing more and more on this topic: It has been incorporated into textbooks on media ethics (Craft & Heim, 2009; Meier, 2009a), is the subject of conferences (Ziomek, 2005) or of theoretical approaches (Plaisance, 2007). Especially in articles dealing with the changes in journalistic roles and values brought about by the Internet (Meier, 2003, pp. 261262; Lasica, 2004; Hayes, Singer & Ceppos, 2007; Singer, 2007) or the changing relationship between journalists and their audience (Metykova, 2008; Meier, 2008), instruments that improve the transparency of journalism are being put on the table and considered. Transparency is a new buzzword in the media industry. Although it has long been considered a criterion for journalistic quality (Ru-Mohl, 1993; 2001; Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2007, pp. 9299; Meier, 2007, pp. 225227), the re-invention of transparent journalism in the digital age has given rise to many new questions both in journalistic practice as well as in journalism research (Smolkin, 2006; Karlsson, 2008). New transparency models such as transparent newsroom or ppen redaktion due to the interactivity, immediacy and archiving capacity in the Internet, offer greater potentials than classical instruments such as ombudsman, open assessment of sources in newspaper features or correction of errors in the next newspaper issue. The objective of this paper is to provide a systematic analysis of different understandings and instruments of transparency in different journalistic cultures and in this way contribute to the conceptualisation of transparency. In a first step, a framework of transparency is developed on the basis of literature from different countries and journalistic cultures. In a further step, with the aid of case studies and case examples in an inductive empirical process, old and new instruments for transparency are gathered and categorised in a matrix. This is to facilitate the analysis of problematic areas and potential conflicts as well as to provide a basis for practical concepts and further empirical research. What exactly does transparency in journalism mean? Transparency is a normative construct that is linked inextricably with public accountability and justification of a practice. In an ethical sense, transparency is a strategy for enhancing public knowledge and engagement that demystify journalistic practices and clarify journalistic values (Ziomek, 2005, p. vii). We can make a fundamental distinction between transparency that is introduced into a system or an organisation from the outside (outside transparency) and transparency that develops from within (self-transparency). The core task of journalism in modern democracy is to bring (outside) transparency into society by reporting for example in politics, the economy, culture, education, science and medicine. As a consequence of the increasing complexity and diversification in society, though also due to an (assumed) failure of journalism and the new possibilities offered by the Internet, there are more and more calls for governments, parties, businesses, the financial system, universities, schools and non-profit organisations to develop self-transparency understood as two-way communication that enriches public discourse and empowers citizens (Fung, Graham & Weil, 2007). In journalism, outside transparency is produced, for example, (within the profession) by media reporters reporting about other media (Fengler, 2003) or (beyond the

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profession) by media watchdogs in the Internet. This paper focuses on transparency that an author or a newsroom can develop about himself or itself, because it is here especially that new models and questions are emerging in the area of journalistic practice and theory that are still largely uninvestigated. It is not intended to deal with transparency in relation to sources e.g. the forswearing of undercover research rather transparency towards the audience. This spirit of transparency concerns two levels that in practice are closely interrelated but that shall be analysed separately: Every individual story: Journalists reveal what they know and what they do not know. They do not withhold any questions relevant to the topic concerned and that research failed to answer. They name the sources and their interests. This form of journalistic transparency is compared with the scientific disclosure of the method of analysis (Neuberger, 2005): Journalism can achieve the scientific quality criterion of reliability therefore objectivity through inter-subjectivity if the audience, at least theoretically, is put in a position to replicate the reporting (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2007, pp. 96). This has been referred to also as checkability (McQuail, 1992, p. 206). Every form of editorial decision-making: Editorial topic selection, topic positioning and topic evaluation is justified and explained therefore also the motives and backgrounds for the selection of news. Thus transparency also reveals the self-interest of the newsroom and the mechanisms of the editorial routine. This demanded disclosure on both levels is largely at variance with journalistic tradition: Make the stories airtight, even omniscient. Never appear unknowing, say the US textbooks (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2007, p. 95). In Germany, the principle is that the story must be well-rounded no ambiguities or contradictions (Pfeil, 2006). And the newsroom is traditionally a black box (Singer, 2005, p. 179; Meier, 2009a). Writing about yourself and your work is a professional taboo (Pttker, 2005, p. 126). For example, the Swiss Press Code refers to the professional obligation to maintain editorial secrecy. Under the terms of this code, informants do not even have to give the journalists a reason for wanting to remain anonymous: It suffices for them to wish to remain so. For the purposes of transparency, the danger for the source resulting from being named must outweigh the public interest in the disclosure of the type and of the self-interest of the source. In the final instance, for newsrooms more transparency means surrendering a certain control over the news process. Similarly, through transparency initiatives and policies in the Internet, politics hands over a certain amount of power and control to the citizens (see the Open Government Initiative of the US government under www.whitehouse.gov/Open/). Behind this are the ideals and myths of an Open Society (Popper, 1962) or a Transparent Society (Brin, 1998), but also political PR strategies aimed at capturing the loyalty of voters to parties and politicians in the era of loyalty abandonment and the multi-option society (Gross, 2005). In the Internet, transparency in general became a major standard for the dissemination of topics relevant to society. For bloggers, transparency is the golden rule with which they wish to generate credibility (Lasica, 2004; 2005): They describe how and from what angle of interest they have covered a topic and routinely link their sources. The immediacy of the Internet has now also made it possible to cover truthful disclosure not only at the time of or after publication, but also beforehand (Singer, 2007). A process journalism replaces product journalism (Jarvis, 2009). The difference between

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Backstage (gathering and editing the news) and Frontstage (publishing and distribution) becomes obsolete in the news cycle of online reporting (Karlsson, 2008) and therefore inevitably also the division between the black box of editorial action and publication. In blogs and forums, and especially with new online tools such as Twitter and Google Wave, newsrooms can formulate and answer research questions together with interested users or eyewitnesses as well as publish and enhance articles in Beta versions. A newsroom that works in accordance with the motto news as conversation must inevitably open up (figure 1).

[Insert Figure 1 here]

It is remarkable that transparency as a value and quality criterion of journalism has its origins mainly in the US journalism culture. In Central Europe, primarily in the Germanspeaking countries, transparency is traditionally ignored, or at best dealt with fleetingly, in journalistic practice, in textbooks about journalism and in the journalism research. Although editorial practices such as those mentioned in this paper are becoming increasingly commonplace, these are usually not termed transparent. Indeed, it is generally judged risky and dangerous for journalism as well as for the diversity and rationality of the public political discourse if media focus increasingly on themselves. This is then no longer considered transparency, but rather Selbstreferentialitt (Blbaum, 1999), Selbstthematisierung (Hohlfeld, 2001; Weinacht & Hohlfeld, 2007), Selbstbezglichkeit (Reinemann & Huismann, 2007) or even Selbstverliebtheit (Malik, 2008), Eigenlob or Eigenwerbung (Pttker, 2005). These perspectives of German communication science shall be included in the evaluation of the empirical case studies. Why transparency in journalism? One advantage of transparency is that the public gains a better understanding of the news machinery and that newsrooms are more aware of their responsibility to the public if they work openly, both of which are an improvement in media ethics. But at the centre of the reasons for the demand for transparent journalism is the concern for the survival of journalism, because journalism is under threat from a crisis of credibility and a changed role in the digital age. Transparency permits quality evaluations by the audience and thus can strengthen credibility (Neuberger, 2005, p. 327).1 As in other systems in society for example, in politics or the economy greater transparency should help to reestablish trust in times of crises (Fung, Graham & Weil, 2007). The underlying factor here is an assumed loss of credibility and trust in the media. At the same time, the actual development is not clear: There are surveys that indicate a drop in the level of credibility in the last years and decades (Gronke & Cook, 2007; Donsbach et al., 2009) as well as surveys that indicate a stability (Amos, 2009) or even a rise in the level of credibility (BBC, Reuters & Media Center, 2006, p. 24). However, it is undisputed that journalists, compared to other professions such as doctors or teachers have a major deficit in relation to trust: Nowadays only 33 percent of the people in Western Europe and 43 percent in the United States think that journalists are a trustworthy professional group (GfK, 2007). Credibility and trustworthiness have always been crucial for journalism (Meier, 2007, pp. 1216; Kohring and Matthes, 2007) and they are becoming essential for the survival of journalism in a digital age (Hayes, Singer and Ceppos, 2007). For

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journalism loses its exclusiveness and its monopoly of public information brokerage (Meier, 2009b). The role of journalism in society has been described frequently in the past as being that of gatekeepers (e.g. Shoemaker, 1991): A central tenet was objectivity as a detachment from sources and audience. The audience had no alternative to journalism and was compelled in black box journalism to blind trust. In an online environment the gatekeeper becomes less important, as there are no longer any traditional gates. If newsrooms want to continue to be needed, then their role must change to that of a sense-maker that brings orientation and navigation to the information explosion (e.g. Singer, 1998; Pavlik, 2004). For this, evidence of trustworthiness must be given repeatedly: Every newsroom, and basically also every single story must show why they deserve more trust than dozens or even hundreds of others on the same topic. But there are a number of potential risks in (too much) transparency (Craft & Heim, 2009, pp. 223225; Smolkin, 2006): The reservations range from simply a waste of time, energy and other precious resources to a potential threat to autonomy of a newsroom and a fear that too much information about a complex body of source material could divert attention from what is really important. In addition, it has not been proven empirically to date that more transparency does actually lead to greater credibility (ONeill, 2002, pp. 63 79). Towards a three-dimensional matrix model of transparency The following research questions arise from the framework of transparency: How is it possible to distinguish and categorise the manifold instruments that realise or improve transparency in journalism? Which problem areas and potential conflicts can be recognised? Which qualityrelated questions re-emerge? Do journalistic values change? How can the breadth of knowledge concerning transparency in journalism be enlarged by empirical research? With the aid of case studies and case examples, as many different transparency instruments as possible are collected and categorised in an inductive process. In order to include different journalistic cultures, countries from all three models of media systems according to Hallin and Mancini (2004) were taken into account: Because the available English-language reference literature on transparency deals mainly with the North Atlantic/liberal model, the focus of the analysis lay on the North/Central European/democratic corporatist model (case studies from Germany and Sweden) as well as to a small degree on the Mediterranean/polarized pluralist model (case studies from Spain). A total of more than 50 examples from 19 newsrooms was analysed. 2 It was possible to combine 20 transparency instruments that could then be categorised in a threedimensional transparency matrix (figure 2).

1. Is the Internet a precondition for the implementation of the instrument (digital approach), or do traditional communication channels suffice (traditional approach)?
There are instruments in print journalism that manage without the Internet: a feature author can explain his research process and critically organise the body of source material in a Methods Block or in footnotes (Clark, 2007). However, in online journalism deep links

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to outside sources or additional research material and untreated data in the Internet extend the possibilities. Journalists are no longer anonymous beings and appear as persons with a human face: Photos of reporters and opinion column authors in the newspaper or more extensively in the Internet with personal portraits, biographies and testimonial to professional competencies up to a collection of all articles written by an author in the archive. The traditional ombudsman referred to also as public editor (NYTimes), readers editor (Guardian), Leseranwalt (Main-Post) or Defensor del Lector (El Pas) acts as a go-between linking readers and the newsroom without the Internet. But via a column or a blog in the Internet he can additionally explain editorial routines and decisions as well as enter into a dialogue with the users.

2. Does the instrument use one-way publication or does it work mainly with interactive communication with the audience?
Readers visits to the news conferences are interactive; live broadcasts of the conference in the Web are one-sided to the extent that they are not complemented by discussion forums. Placing the editorial ethics code or editorial guidelines in the Internet creates one-sided transparency. In contrast, setting up a regular reader phone-in desk or establishing a reader advisory board brings about interactivity: Since October 2007, the German Bild daily newspaper has had a 32-person reader advisory board whose members are selected once annually from thousands of applications submitted by readers and who develop proposals in workshops together with the editorial managers on how to improve the newspaper. 3. Does the instrument introduce openness especially to the journalistic product, therefore the individual story or to the journalistic process, therefore to the editorial routines and editorial decision-making? If errors have been made, a more extensive transparency calls for not just a correction of the facts in the article concerned, but also an explanation about how and why this could happen in the journalistic process. User comments below online articles can refer either to the topic of the article or the production process of the article. Both are closely connected: The discussion concerning the topic can lead to criticism of the editorial staff for example, careless research or misleading selection of facts. Blogs and Twitter feeds on editorial decisions also as a platform for statements on criticism of the newsroom have become commonplace in many newsrooms (Wied & Schmidt, 2008). Users can be invited from the beginning in the Internet to contribute to the production of a story this brings transparency to both the topic and editorial process: For example, in the online offering of El Mundo this produces a Radiografia del Paro (xray of unemployment) with a map into which users can enter their own concerns. The German focus.de provides an example of how the progress of a topic can be tracked transparently: A bar chart shows how often the topic has been reported about during the last twelve months including direct links to the archived articles. An article history, e.g. such as at the Guardian in the Internet, reveals when and where the article was published and updated.

[Insert Figure 2 here]

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Self-coverage as relationship management: every journalist an ombudsman Whereas the Internet enhances the possibilities for transparency by additional instruments in all dimensions, the biggest challenge is situated neither on the dividing line between traditional and digital approach, nor between one-way and interactive communication. Instead, it concerns whether the transparency instrument is intended to disclose the journalistic processes or simply introduce a greater openness into the journalistic product. Although the transparency of the journalistic products means more work for the editorial staff, this is only an organisational and technical matter and largely non-problematic from the normative point of view. If the sources are disclosed or linked, errors corrected or the users and author discuss the topic of an article, this strengthens the journalistic quality. Objectivity then aims for as stated above social-scientific reliability in the sense of a checkability of a story. In contrast, the problematic area lies in the disclosure of the editorial processes. If a newsroom agrees to this, it must inevitably talk about itself: either in a confidential face-toface or phone-in talk with the readers or publicly on the media platforms, especially in the online offering. The challenge is that journalists no longer report only about others, but about themselves: Self-coverage complements the usual news coverage. Self-coverage inevitably increases in the Internet because as stated in the above the dividing line between Backstage and Frontstage in process journalism is becoming increasingly indistinct, which is why it is necessary to talk publicly about the Backstage aspect. But what are the quality criteria and values of self-coverage? Can a newsroom report objectively about itself? Objectivity and impartiality are obviously not logical benchmarks for the quality of self-coverage. Rather, it is much more a case of demonstrating trustworthiness by open self-reflection, building-up a relationship with the audience and binding the loyalty of the target audiences to the editorial products. Experience with journalistic self-coverage exists traditionally only with the ombudsman who, however, in order to ensure objectivity plays a special role in the newsroom (Kaltenbrunner, 2006; Elia, 2007). Where all journalists participate in the transparency of editorial processes, any separation of roles is no longer possible. Every journalist slips from case to case into the role of ombudsman and then replaces objectivity with transparent self-reflection. Neither journalistic practice nor journalism research have to date concerned themselves intensively with the quality criteria and standards of self-coverage. With selfcoverage and relations management, journalism is borrowing from a different profession: that of Public Relations (PR). A newsroom usually does not have a press officer, says chief editor Kai Gniffke (2007) in the Tagesschau blog. For Gniffke, maximum transparency is the best PR. Usually journalists and journalism researchers do not see it that way: PR is an opponent of journalism; journalists do not use its tools. If one removes the blinkers, it becomes clear that newsrooms should not repeat the PR mistakes that result from onesided propaganda and cutting off from the outside and which lead to losses of trust (Bentele/Seidenglanz, 2005) but that they can learn from a dialogue ethics understanding of PR. Journalists then build in the self-coverage relationships that serve both organizational and public interests (Kent & Taylor, 2002; McAllister-Spooner, 2009). An open relationship management meets the audience at their level and demands selfcriticism and a willingness to change ones own behaviour where it has been recognised as being wrong. In online PR, this concept comes to life as Cluetrain-PR (Pleil, 2007) in reference to The Cluetrain Manifesto (Livine et al., 2000) that sees a

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responsible and dialogue-oriented corporate culture as the only means of survival in the digital age. Dialogue-oriented PR and dialogue-oriented journalism have the same theoretical roots mainly in the dialogue philosophy of Martin Buber (Kent & Taylor, 2002; Soffer, 2009) and in the social theory of communicative action of Jrgen Habermas (Burkart, 1993; Brosda, 2008). In the newsrooms a discussion process about what is good and bad selfcoverage is necessary. Transparency needs a logical editorial concept3 that offers guard rails for the balance between ethical responsibility, accountability, dialogue between equals, willingness to learn from mistakes on the one hand and euphemistic, flattering and staged self-presentation or vain and irrelevant navel-gazing on the other hand.4 Transparency, despite all well-intended guide rails, remains risky because we know too little about its effects. For this reason, empirical research is necessary: Case studies in newsrooms must be combined with research into effects therefore field and laboratory experiments on the question of which form of transparency does actually lead to more credibility on the part of the audience and which type of transparency has risks and side-effects.

NOTES 1 For more than a decade, a series of studies conducted by ASNE (American Society of Newspaper Editors) has attempted to discover how to improve the credibility of journalism. Among the proposals put forward are correct early and often, limit anonymous sources and make a greater effort to explain the editorial decision-making process to readers (see http://www.asne.org/credibilityhandbook/contents.htm; http://www.asne.org/credibilityhandbook/brt/overview.htm). 2 The following newsrooms were included as examples in the analysis. In Germany: Tagesschau (ARD), Bild, Rhein-Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, tageszeitung, Sddeutsche Zeitung, Main-Post, Donaukurier, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Spiegel online, Focus online, Zeit online. In Sweden: Aktuellt (SVT). In Spain: El Mundo, El Pas. In the USA: Spokesman Review, New York Times. In GB: Guardian, Reuters. 3 First approaches towards such a concept are the rules that several US newspapers gave their reporters and editors for dealing with social networking sites in the first half of 2009 (Strupp, 2009). 4 A perfect example of failure due to the absence of a concept was provided by the Focus Online Twitter after an incident at a German school in March 2009 when a pupil ran amok: After a matter-of-fact outside report (Result of this act of madness: Nine pupils, three teachers, three passers-by. Dead ) the tweets switch to an irreverent description of mundane matters (jochenjochen (=chief editor) has approved budget for two toothbrushes. Focus Online Reporter staying in Winnenden).

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(2008) The Changing Relationship between Journalists and their Audiences: Drifting Together or Drifting Apart?, paper presented to the Inter American Press Association, Madrid, October MEIER, KLAUS (2009a) Redaktion, in Christian Schicha und Carsten Brosda (eds.) Handbuch Medienethik, Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag: forthcoming MEIER, KLAUS (2009b) Journalismus in Zeiten der Wirtschaftskrise. Neun Thesen zum Strukturwandel der Medien, Journalistik Journal 12 (1), pp. 1417 METYKOVA, MONIKA (2008) Drifting Apart? European Journalists and their Audiences, Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 5(2) pp. 4259 NEUBERGER, CHRISTOPH (2005) Objektivitt, in Siegfried Weischenberg, Hans J. Kleinsteuber and Bernhard Prksen (eds.) Handbuch Journalismus und Medien, Konstanz: UVK: pp. 325328 ONEILL, ONORA (2002) A Question of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press PAVLIK, JOHN V. (2004) A Sea-Change in Journalism: Convergence, Journalists, their Audiences and Sources, Convergence 10(4) pp. 2129 PFEIL, ULRIKE (2006) Die meisten Geschichten sind unrund. Die Welt ist komplex. Journalisten reduzieren Komplexitt, in Friederike Herrmann (ed.) Unter Druck. Die journalistische Textwerkstatt. Erfahrungen, Analysen, bungen, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag: pp. 147150 PLAISANCE, PATRICK LEE (2007) Transparency: An Assessment of the Kantian Roots of a Key Element in Media Ethics Practice, Journal of Mass Media Ethics 22 (2&3) pp. 187207 PLEIL, THOMAS (2007) (ed.) Online-PR im Web 2.0. Fallbeispiele aus Wirtschaft und Politik. Konstanz: UVK POPPER, KARL R. (1962) The Open Society and Its Enemies, Princeton: Princeton University Press PTTKER, HORST (2005) Ende des Millenniums Ende des Journalismus? Wider die Dogmatisierung der professionellen Trennungsgrundstze, in Markus Behmer, Bernd Blbaum, Armin Scholl and Rudolf Stber (eds.) Journalismus und Wandel. Analysedimensionen, Konzepte, Fallstudien, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag: pp. 123-141 REINEMANN, CARSTEN AND HUISMANN, JANA (2007) Beziehen sich Medien immer mehr auf Medien? Dimensionen, Belege, Erklrungen, Publizistik 52(4) pp. 465484 RUSS-MOHL, STEPHAN (1993) Regulating Self-Regulation: The Neglected Case of Journalism Policies. Securing Quality in Journalism and Building Media Infrastructures on a European Scale, Communications 18(2) pp. 151168 RUSS-MOHL, STEPHAN (2001) Benchmarking. Transparenz und Interaktivitt bei fhrenden amerikanischen Zeitungen, in Hans J. Kleinsteuber (ed.) Aktuelle Medientrends in den USA. Journalismus, politische Kommunikation und Medien im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag: pp. 109125 SHOEMAKER, PAMELA J. (1991) Gatekeeping. Newbury Park, London, New Delhi: Sage SINGER, JANE B. (1998) Online-Journalists: Foundations for Research into Their Changing Roles, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 4(1), http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol4/issue1/singer.html SINGER, JANE B. (2005) The political j-blogger. Normalizing a new media form to fit old norms and practices, Journalism 6(2) pp. 173198 SINGER, JANE B. (2007) Contested Autonomy. Professional and Popular Claims on Journalistic Norms, Journalism Studies 8(1) pp. 7995 SMITH, STEVEN A. (2005) Fortress Journalism Failed. The Transparent Newsroom Works, Pressthink, 23. November, http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/ pressthink/2005/11/23/spk_ss.html

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SMITH,

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STEVEN A. (2009) Now more than ever, we need Transparency, http://www.stillanewspaperman.com/2009/03/27/now-more-than-ever-we-needtransparency SMOLKIN, RACHEL (2006) Too Transparent?, American Journalism Review 28(2) pp. 1623 SOFFER, OREN (2009) The competing ideals of objectivity and dialogue in American journalism, Journalism 10(4) pp. 473491 STRUPP, JOE (2009) Shoptalk: Will Tweeting Fly?, editor & publisher 142(6) p.1 WIED, KRISTINA AND SCHMIDT, JAN (2008) Weblogs und Qualittssicherung. Zu Potentialen weblogbasierter Kritik im Journalismus in Thorsten Quandt and Wolfgang Schweiger (eds.) Journalismus online Pratizipation oder Profession?, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag: pp. 173192 ZIOMEK, JON (2005) Journalism, Transparency and the Public Trust. A Report of the Eighth Annual Aspen Institute Conference on Journalism and Society, http://www.aspeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/content/docs/communications%20an d%20society%20program/JOURTRANSPTEXT.PDF

Klaus Meier, Institute of Journalism, University of Dortmund, Germany. Email: km@klausmeier.net

Klaus Meier holds the chair for cross-media development in journalism at Dortmund University of Technology (Germany). His research explores editorial management, innovations in newsrooms, convergence, online journalism, science journalism and journalism education. From 2001 to 2009 he was professor of journalism studies at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, where he was head of the programmes Online Journalism (2003 to 2005) and Science Journalism (2005 to 2007) and dean of study in the faculty for media (2007 to 2008). From 1996 to 2001 he was assistant professor at the Catholic University of Eichsttt-Ingolstadt, where he earned a Dr. phil. in communication science. He has worked as a coach and consultant in about 40 workshops with several media and journalists in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Singapore and Bangkok. He is a former newspaper and television journalist (1989 to 1994).

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Figure 1 Whereas in the traditional Product Journalism, it was easy to conceal the Backstage from the audience, Process Journalism opens itself up to the audience and the distinctions between Backstage and Frontstage become obscure (see Karlsson, 2008; Jarvis, 2009).

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Figure 2 The three-dimensional transparency matrix: The first dimension is indicated by colour (black = traditional approach; white = digital approach). The second dimension distinguishes vertically between one-way and interactive communication. In the third dimension it is indicated horizontally whether transparency is introduced mainly into the journalistic processes or into the individual article.