Reporting on a dispute between the Marlin ISD superintendent and the Waco Tribune-Herald, the newspaper quoted Haynes and Boone, LLP attorney Alicia Calzada, an associate in the Media and Entertainment Practice Group, on trust in the news media.
The superintendent had said the Tribune-Herald “made up” information related to the district’s state ranking, but the newspaper said it came from a state education spokesperson.
Speaking to the Tribune-Herald about the importance of trustworthy news sources at a time when the media often are targets of “fake news” accusations, Calzada said that the public should look for reputable news outlets, and that journalists should make sure their sources are reliable.
“The trust that develops between an audience and a reader and a news organization is something that develops over time,” Calzada said. “People need to invest in their news sources, subscribe to their newspaper or their public radio. … They need to support their news source, but you don’t wake up and say, ‘This is a reliable source I can believe.’ There’s obviously a million places to get information now, and if you’re going to turn to nontraditional places to get information, they have to work to build your trust.”
“That news organization has to honor that trust and be worthy of it and maintain that trust,” she said. “It’s nothing new for a politician to say that something stated in the news media isn’t true even when they’re confronted with evidence.”
(Haynes and Boone represents the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.)
Excerpted from the Waco Tribune-Herald. To read the full article, click here.