Trust
Earned, not assumed.
As I put the final touches on this article for Substack, the G&G team is working around the clock to finalize our Citizen’s Complaint for the Joint Performance Review Committee on Tuesday. The hours we’ve already poured into this effort, and the hours still ahead, reflect the high standards we hold ourselves to. For the past 311 days, we’ve worked every day to earn your trust.
Our hope is that the care we’ve taken in preparing this case shows our commitment to accuracy and transparency. Trust is not something we take lightly. It matters to us as an organization and as individuals, and we want to carry that trust forward into the next election cycle as we continue to provide clear, honest education on the issues and the candidates that deserve careful consideration.
Trust is a word we throw around a lot, but don’t always stop to consider. Who do you trust with your time? With your money? With your children? With your story? With your life?
In the digital age, we’ve been sold the idea that access to information means access to knowledge and that we no longer have to pay for reliable and accurate news. What once passed for journalism is now often a carefully edited performance, complete with clickbait headlines, doctored images, and a constant cycle of outrage.
Mainstream media has become performative, with a few facts sprinkled in. In fact, it’s often in lockstep with social platforms, chasing algorithms that reward sensationalism over substance. The mundane becomes dramatic, and the complex becomes divisive. Every policy is reduced to a headline, and every person a partisan. It’s not just about informing the public anymore, it’s about stirring the pot.
And into that pot step the fringe.
Some of the most extreme websites and channels know exactly how to catch the eye of moderate, otherwise reasonable people. They take a half-truth, wrap it in righteous fury, and slap on a headline that begs to be shared. Add a few AI-generated deepfakes or out-of-context video clips, and suddenly fiction becomes fact, because it feels true.
This has dangerous consequences for everyone, but especially for those without stable internet access or digital literacy. Rural residents and senior citizens are often the first to be left behind. Many don’t use social media. Many don’t trust it. They grew up with print journalism, with names they recognized and reporters they could call. The loss of the printed newspaper isn’t just inconvenient for them, it’s a cultural and civic blow that leaves them cut off, isolated, and misinformed.
At Gravel & Grit, we had to learn early on who to trust with our story.
Not everyone who showed up with a microphone got it right. Some oversimplified. Others spun the facts into something that skirted around the whole truth, or just said a whole lot of nothing (still looking at you AP). But a few outlets listened. They took time. They asked follow-up questions. They printed our quotes. They spent time with us in our communities. And that’s who we learned to trust. They are the ones that told our story.
If Arkansas is going to survive this divisive age, local media needs to reclaim its role, not as a mouthpiece for the left or the right, but as a reliable guidepost for the community. The people in small towns, in farming communities, in nursing homes and on dirt roads, deserve to get news that is meaningful to them, just as much as anyone scrolling through a feed in Little Rock..
According to the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute’s Civic Arkansas project, most Arkansans want to be involved. They’re not apathetic. They’re lost. They don’t know where to go, what to read, or how to take the first step. That’s not a failure of interest. It’s a failure of communication. It’s the void left behind when local newspapers died, and it’s one of the clearest reasons why printed, community-based news needs to make a comeback. Without it, too many are left in the dark, especially in rural towns where trust is built face to face, not through sensationalized, digital headlines.
Recently, Adam Watson and I were privileged to attend the Press and Community Convening, sponsored by the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute’s Civic Arkansas. It was refreshing to join a room full of journalists and civic-minded Arkansans discussing the future of local news, especially news for rural communities. The 2023 Arkansas Civic Health Index tells us: access to trusted, local information is essential for civic engagement. Panelists offered innovative ideas for funding independent journalism and rebuilding community trust. It was a hopeful reminder that the fight for local news is also a fight for a healthier democracy.
So here’s our ask.
Gravel & Grit is asking for your trust. Not because we have all the answers, but because we’re committed to finding them, and to sharing what we learn with honesty and transparency.
We’re chasing the truth. Not the version according to Republicans, or the version according to Democrats. Just the truth.
We love Arkansas. We believe in the rural spirit that built this state. But too many of our small towns are dying. Others are being pushed aside or trampled on. All of them deserve our attention. All of them deserve our support.
And most of all… we all deserve representation we can put our trust in.
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