The importance of transparency

I was reading an article tonight ( http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-greenest-person-0923_qsep23,0,6678000.story )about the greenest man in Chicago. Ken Dunn is considered the person in Chicago with the smallest carbon footprint.

Sounds great. But how on Earth can something like that be determined out of the three million plus people (including suburbs) that live near Chicago?

In the online story, there are two accompanying links: How we did it and How to be green.

The how we did it was the one that caught my eye.

The Tribune says it asked local green groups for people that are living green lives, only focused on personal lives for calculations and then used a Web site to calculate the amount of carbon these people produced. The people then submitted shopping and energy use information to the Tribune.

I think the most important part of this story is that the Tribune was transparent in telling the reader how this particular person won the title. Maybe there was a better way to find the greenest person, but I think that by telling the reader how it was done, it makes the story more credible by ensuring the reader that this person was not arbitrarily chosen.

This lesson can be learned for other news stories. Not every story has to contain a link to 150 more words describing how it was reported. But for stories where the reader would be left with unanswered questions, I do not think it is a bad idea to add a link to how the story was reported as well as the reporters involvement with sources.

In a time when people seem to not trust the news and reporters' credibility, transparency is a way to fight that stereotype.