How can humanising the journalist help build deeper connections with audiences and build trust in the press?

European Journalism Observatory · 2026-09-02 · EU · verified record

Themes: Media & broadcasting · Online platforms

With public trust in journalism eroding in today’s fast-changing media landscape, a question that has grappled researcher and journalist Emilie Gambade is how journalists can truly connect with their audiences. In this interview, Emilie spoke to EJO about her current doctoral research focusing on humanising the practitioner through filming techniques – telling the stories of the journalist themselves, not simply the stories they cover. Your research on ‘humanising’ the practitioner is fascinating. Could you tell us a little bit about your background? What inspired your current research? I am the head of Life, Videos & Podcasts at Daily Maverick, an innovative and influential digital news media in South Africa. Before this, I was the editor-in-chief of ELLE South Africa and the brand director for Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, House & Leisure, also in South Africa. I have a mixed background of creativity and news and I am equally passionate about telling stories through beautiful visuals as I am about investigative journalism. What inspired my research is the crisis of trust that has disrupted the media landscape over the last decade. Many in the industry have been wondering quite deeply about the dire state of the media, and a lot has already been written about the crisis in the press. My work is looking at how a different approach to storytelling might help rebuild trust in journalism. As journalists, we hope that our stories will be read, heard, watched, trusted, and also shared. We need trusted and truthful information to build a strong ecosystem, a “shared reality” as Maria Ressa calls it. There is a paper by Anil Kunnel – I’m probably paraphrasing – who says that we share information with people we feel connected to, often without thinking about it, and for those social connections to happen, we need to see each other, we need to feel like we belong.…