Source credibility as “information subsidy”: Strategies for successful NGO journalism at Mexican human rights NGOs

Abstract

This article draws on Gandy's (1982) influential concept of "information subsidies" to examine strategies Mexican human rights NGOs employ to get their information into the news. By building their credibility as sourcesthrough interpersonal relationships with journalists, through authority with human rights leaders, and through associations with NGO networks-NGOs provide a verification subsidy that shortens the time journalists need to evaluate the sources of their information. By playing to NGOs' strengths, namely their symbolic and social capital, this type of information subsidy holds promise for pluralism and accountability in the public sphere. This promise varies, however, according to what kind of pluralism we mean: namely, pluralism visa -vis the field of power, pluralism within the field of human rights NGOs, and pluralism of access to human rights accountability. It also varies according to the resources of the NGO in question, which affect the NGO's ability to demonstrate credibility and thus to provide information subsidies. The article's focus on the information subsidies provided by subordinate journalistic sources, particularly those that address information values about sources rather than about content, as well as on the centrality of credibility in communication across fields, further develops these concepts in media sociology.

Practising what they preach? Development NGOs and the EU’s Emergency Trust Fund for Africa

“…An important consideration that influences these decisions is the NGDO's reputation, or the need to 'look good' (Jones 2017;Mitchell and Stroup 2017). A 'good' reputation will mean different things to different audiences (Gourevitch and lake 2012): official donors (ie governments and multilateral organisations) will be more willing to work with NGDOs that have a track record of effective and efficient project implementation; policymakers and journalists are more likely to engage with NGDOs that provide accurate and reliable information about specific issues (McPherson 2016); and grassroots donors usually provide donations for moral reasons, to organisations they see as credibly championing these in practice. Acting in a moral and virtuous manner is therefore an important source of a good reputation, and thus also funding, but does not guarantee it (Gourevitch and lake 2012).…”

Post-truths, Common Worlds, and Critical Politics

“…Others have gone further, arguing that this homogenization and dismissal of critique is not only problematic but counter-productive, as critical perspectives provide precisely the tools that are necessary to unpick the "post-truth phenomenon" (Boler and Davis, 2018;Giraud, 2017;Marres, 2018;McPherson, 2015McPherson, , 2016. 4 Noortje Marres (2018), for example, details how technical solutions, which are currently being devised to counter post-truth, rely on AI technofixes that presume the problem lies in the content of social media posts and assume solutions can be found in software that neatly parses fact from fiction.…”

“…Worryingly, the distinction between knowledge and non-knowledge roughly maps onto a polarity that defines today's political force fields, namely the opposition between educated progressives and, on balance, less educated supporters of populist and nationalist causes… (Marres, 2018: 429-30) The perpetuation of these hierarchies, therefore, is not just strategically dangerous -in playing into the hands of a populist critique of experts as trying to impose their own definitions of issues and neglecting public concerns -but carries a distinct epistemic politics. Ella McPherson's (2015McPherson's ( , 2016 work, reveals the sakes of this problem in illustrating pressures upon NGOs to create norms about what constitutes truth, in a desire to ensure the evidence they use is credible. Her work offers a reminder that what is often consecrated in fact-checking activities is not just the legitimacy of certain forms of knowledge, but the institutions or individuals who are culturally held up as gatekeepers of this knowledge.…”

Social Media and Human Rights Advocacy

“…This is particularly the case for fields, like journalism or human rights NGOs, where success depends on attracting the attention of those outside of the field. Whether this concern for other logics is deleterious or beneficial to these fields' own logics, it is unavoidable (McPherson, 2016). This heteronomy is a theme in the small but growing literature on NGO journalism, focused in particular on how NGOs are adjusting their information logics to the information logics of the mainstream media through which they traditionally reached their target audiences -and still do today (e.g.…”

“…This heteronomy is a theme in the small but growing literature on NGO journalism, focused in particular on how NGOs are adjusting their information logics to the information logics of the mainstream media through which they traditionally reached their target audiences -and still do today (e.g. Cottle and Nolan, 2007;Fenton, 2010;Waisbord, 2011;Powers, 2014;McPherson, 2016). This approach is a useful starting point for understanding how the field of social media platforms may be inflecting the visibility of advocacy -in part through inflecting the other fields relevant to the human rights advocacy communication chain.…”