In Diversity We Trust? Examining the Effect of Political Newsroom Diversity on Media Trust, Use, and Avoidance

In an era of declining American media trust, it is crucial to examine methods for increasing trust and encouraging holistic information seeking. Accordingly, we extend scholarship assessing outcomes of journalistic transparency by examining the effects of providing consumers with a breakdown of the political diversity of journalists working for a news outlet. We conducted three experiments varying the ideological (Study 1) and partisan (Studies 2 and 3) identification of journalists working for an outlet, assessing impacts on outlet trust, use, and avoidance intentions, and whether trust mediated relationships for the latter two outcomes. Participants reported higher trust, greater use, and lower avoidance intentions for balanced (i.e., equally represented political viewpoints) and unaffiliated (i.e., no political information) outlets compared to two partisan majority outlets. Results showed no differences in trust or use/avoidance intentions between the unaffiliated and balanced outlets. Additionally, an out-group bias was prevalent for partisans across all three experiments.