Are we content to share the same billing with everyone who can post any form of story on the internet and call themselves a journalist?

We scrunch up our noses, stamp our feet and say, “They don’t do what we do. They don’t know what we know. They don’t share our commitment to accuracy and fairness. They aren’t us.”

But we say that only to each other, as we Google Angola and a Wikipedia entry tops the page.

The people we need to tell are those readers/page viewers we want to draw, Google Senior Adviser Richard Gingras told APME 2008 conference goers Monday in Las Vegas.

Our news companies are posting content more likely to be balanced, more likely to be complete, more likely to be accurate. Google, which APME organizers call our industry’s “frienemy,” knows that.

That’s what Gingras means when he says Google looks for news sources “that have some basis of editorial process behind that content.” Google wants to know stories the search giant sends people to are credible.

Don’t readers want to know? If they do, are we telling them?

“Leverage the value of who you are,” Gingras says.

Tell readers: the reporter’s background and prior work, the editorial process. Let readers – page viewers – see our depth of coverage, persistence of coverage and supporting documents that bring them a better story, a credible story.

We have the training, balance, experience and editorial process that sets us apart from bloggers and others, reminds Gingras. Why don’t we say that? It is no longer enough to tell readers “trust us because we are the ones who should be trusted.” We need to show them why. We need transparency.

He does suggest we take a tip from Wikipedia: Rethink how we structure content on line. Provide a fixed address for readers to find all things we know about that topic. A story doesn’t have to be a single article, Gingras said. It can be a living resource.

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