For the past few years, The Day has worked with an organization called Trusting News to develop strategies for fostering a trusting relationship with our audience. To that end, we are taking part in a national research project to understand the concerns of conservative readers.

In our correspondence with members of our audience, one of the most frequent criticisms we hear, about The Day and the news media in general, is that there is too much liberal bias. But often we don't get the chance to discuss in more detail the reasons for that criticism.

A 2020 Gallup poll found that 73% of Democrats said they trust the media "a fair amount" or "a great deal." Only 10% of Republicans reported that same level of trust. Our goal in The Day's newsroom is to keep our local residents informed about what is important, interesting and entertaining in our community. This is true regardless of political ideology.

Do you consider yourself right-leaning or conservative? If so, we'd like to know what you think about news coverage. The Day is one of 30 newsrooms working with researchers from the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas to better understand and address the lack of trust that many people have in the news media.

We invite you to take a survey, and possibly connect with one of our journalists for a longer interview. The information from the surveys and interviews will be anonymized and collected, along with the results from the other participating newsrooms, by the research team. They will share the results later this summer.

Your participation will help us, and the wider journalism industry, better understand and reflect your views. Go to bit.ly/newstrustsurvey to take the survey and sign up to be interviewed. If you're selected to be interviewed, you'll get a $25 gift card.