How one NPR station is trying to win conservative listeners – by listening

Scott Blanchard was driving a Prius when he first came to work at a local National Public Radio member station here, and joked that the hybrid car – one that some conservatives have derided as a liberal virtue signal — was a requirement. 

But Mr. Blanchard doesn’t live among the liberal urban elite. For the past 27 years, he has made his home in a rural Pennsylvania county where two-thirds of voters supported Donald Trump in 2020. 

Amid a national crisis of trust in journalism, he and his colleagues at WITF have realized that they have significant work to do in engaging with the largely conservative swath of Pennsylvania where they broadcast. That is part of a broader effort to make their news coverage more trusted and relevant to communities by involving local listeners in helping determine what to cover, how to cover it, and whose voices to include. 

“It used to be that we were on a hill transmitting down reams of information to people,” says Mr. Blanchard, WITF’s director of journalism. “But I think as an industry we’ve figured out that’s not really working.”

Simmering distrust has come to a boil in the Trump era, prompting critiques from several prominent journalists. Among them was veteran NPR editor Uri Berliner, who sent shock waves through the media industry in April with an essay titled “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.”

The son of a lesbian peace activist, Mr. Berliner argued that NPR – the home of “All Things Considered” – had, in the name of diversity and inclusion, stopped considering all things. It had lost its curious, open-minded spirit, and focused on liberal themes. He cited data showing that many conservatives – more than a quarter of NPR’s audience in 2011 – had stopped listening. Moreover, according to a poll, only 3 in 10 people found NPR “trustworthy.” 

He urged the organization to better serve the American public. But NPR’s leadership rejected Mr. Berliner’s critique, published by The Free Press without his employer’s approval. He soon resigned. 

WITF, meanwhile, has been taking a more deliberate approach to addressing the trust deficit since the contentious 2020 election. It is trying to engage with an ideologically diverse range of listeners through in-person events, on-air conversations, and a weekly newsletter that pulls back the curtain on their work.

“WITF is leading the way in terms of being thoughtful and transparent about their mission, their ethics, and their practices,” says Joy Mayer, founder of the nonprofit Trusting News, who has worked with hundreds of newsrooms, including The Christian Science Monitor. 

The station stands out amid a growing movement nationwide, as traditional outlets grapple with both distrust and declining resources to produce thoughtful, thorough coverage. Winning back trust in an increasingly polarized nation – where opposing sides increasingly disagree not only on facts but, more critically, on which institutions have the credibility to confirm facts – is a huge challenge.

But if successful, the efforts by WITF and other news outlets to rebuild trust could help journalism become a greater force for good in local communities – and more financially sustainable. 

Mr. Blanchard is not defending journalism’s traditional place on the hilltop; he’s embracing something Ms. Mayer says is essential to rebuilding trust: humility. 

“I cannot stress this enough: We are a work in progress,” he says.

In search of conservative listeners – and voices

As soon as Jonathan Brown walked into a WITF News and Brews event this spring, he realized he was vastly outnumbered. 

He heard participants praising the Biden administration, criticizing conservatives as being against “reproductive rights,” and talking about the need to “fight against these extremists” showing up at school board meetings across Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Brown, a longtime public-radio listener, had been thrilled to hear that WITF had recognized that to prove its trustworthiness to a wider range of listeners, they had to better understand conservatives like him. 

But now he realized how hard this work was going to be: Not very many conservatives were engaging with those efforts.

“I think a lot of conservatives would have said, ‘This is exactly what I thought. I’m in a sea of blue, and they’re just going to attack my views. I’m all alone.’ And they wouldn’t come back,” says Mr. Brown, adding that he leaned on his faith in that moment. “I took a pause and centered myself with the Lord.” 

He decided to stay – and came away impressed with the sincerity of WITF staffers, two of whom talked with him one-on-one. He resolved, he says, “to be even more engaged in the process and do my best to both provide my point of view and legitimately listen.”

Mr. Brown has since frequently engaged with Mr. Blanchard’s weekly newsletter, designed to spark conversations about everything from using anonymous sources to Mr. Berliner’s criticism. The latter led to Mr. Blanchard hosting a Zoom call with listeners and NPR public editor Kelly McBride.

The weekly missives have also touched on how WITF reporters are striving to use less polarized language and to include a range of perspectives – two things Mr. Brown has noticed them doing well. He says that he has increasingly seen WITF’s reporting become distinct from the station’s other public radio programming – particularly on hot-button issues, from banning school library books to transgender girls competing in girls’ sports. 

While the newsletter is WITF’s main way to engage with conservatives, Mr. Brown has encouraged the station’s leaders to do more to welcome such people at their events. 

But it’s been tough going. At another News and Brews event this summer, when Mr. Blanchard asked who in the room was right-leaning politically, the Monitor saw two attendees raise their hands. “Good, we’re glad you’re here,” he said. 

During a breakout session, one of the attendees said he was there with friends and didn’t have much to say; the other, Don Portner, had brought a couple of friends after attending a previous event. But he and his wife sat in a corner with them and didn’t engage with staffers or other participants. 

“If they come to me, I might drop a little hint,” Mr. Portner told the Monitor, expressing frustration with how one-sided news coverage has become, with opinion creeping in to how stories are framed and reported.

Recently Mr. Blanchard asked Mr. Brown to help him connect with fellow conservatives; he has found one so far.

Holding GOP officials accountable for “election-fraud lie”

Part of the challenge is Republican frustration with WITF’s “accountability policy.” In the wake of the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, WITF attributed the assault to then-President Donald Trump’s “election-fraud lie caus[ing] many of his supporters to believe incorrectly that the election had been stolen.” 

Therefore, going forward, whenever it quoted or referred to U.S. representatives and state legislators who opposed certifying Pennsylvania’s Electoral College results when Congress met to review the count that day, the station would mention their actions. 

“We believe consistently presenting the facts that reveal the lie will play a part in diminishing its power over those who believed and supported it,” WITF explained. 

That approach, developed in consultation with NPR’s public editor and Ms. Mayer’s Trusting News organization, garnered national attention – including an interview on CNN. Today it is included in WITF’s broader election coverage guidelines.

WITF’s reputation for its democracy coverage, including its accountability policy, attracted Jordan Wilkie to a job opening as a democracy reporter earlier this year following a project to improve elections coverage in North Carolina. He has faced skepticism from GOP sources due to the policy, but has still been able to land interviews with some lawmakers on WITF’s accountability list. 

“Something to be said for showing that you can shut up”

Mr. Wilkie has also embraced another pillar of the newsroom’s efforts to rebuild trust: listening sessions.

It’s a radical, almost counterintuitive idea for a profession that has long seen itself as gatekeepers, not only vetting information but also framing the public conversation by deciding which questions to explore.

“There’s really something to be said for showing that you can shut up,” says Mr. Wilkie.

In June, he convened a small group of Pennsylvania poll workers for a recorded discussion. He let them explore the issues most pressing to them – like how long it would take the constable to arrive if trouble arose, or what to do about a county solicitor reinterpreting a long-standing rule governing who is allowed inside polling stations. 

No one mentioned the 2020 elections, despite Pennsylvania being ground zero for the debate over whether the results were fair and accurate. 

The closest they came was when Mr. Wilkie asked: “How do errors happen? How do you fix it?” 

“The errors are not in someone’s vote being cast,” replied Allison Meckley, a judge of elections in York County. “It’s on the clerical end of our side of it, to make sure all the numbers add up so people can feel there’s integrity in elections.”

Indeed, these poll workers – like journalists – are dealing with a crisis of trust in their field. To Mr. Wilkie, the twin crises are linked. 

“I have to rely on the institutions to get my facts,” he says. “As people trust institutions less, they’re going to trust news less.”

Suzanne Fry, who has been a judge of elections for 19 years in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, told the Monitor that she participated in the listening session in hopes of informing voters, including about the checks and balances that ensure an accurate count.

“There’s a lot of misconceptions about the whole electoral process,” says Ms. Fry, who has increasingly seen voters show up “huffy” – something she attributes to the emotionally charged tone of some media outlets these days. 

Many mainstream journalists say they wish people would make more informed choices about their news diets. But ultimately, Ms. Mayer says, the responsibility for addressing the trust deficit lies with journalists.

“We serve the public we have, not the public we wish we had,” she says. “Our role in democracy will be completely undermined and made irrelevant if we do not figure out how to earn trust.”