Instruments and practices of journalistic transparency: a brief mapping

Abstract

Transparency is a social phenomenon that affects governments, companies and journalism. Since 1980s, transparency has been used as a discourse to fight corruption and open up publicly in Western countries. In this way, transparent governments are accountable to the public and can be monitored by the public. Transparent companies reach out to their audiences and increase their credibility in the markets. Journalism is also expected to be a more well-known and responsible activity. Journalists and media can be more transparent when presenting the ways in which they obtained the information, potential conflicts of interest in coverage, and revealing sensitive sources and issues. There is a demand for actions that are more visible and less opaque in society. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the subject with a brief mapping of initiatives that represent the responses of the journalistic sector to the problem of invisibility. The cases mentioned are innovative because they contradict the logic of opacity in the industry and reshape the relationships of journalism with its audiences. The mapping is exploratory and not exhaustive. It was made from searches for journalistic transparency initiatives in internet databases, reference bibliography and market indications. The mapping presented is based on three categories: actions leading to accountability; actions that strengthen journalistic credibility; and actions that lead to changes in practices and procedures. The findings points to a varied landscape of transparency initiatives, but still insufficient to make the topic a frequent behavior of journalists and media.