Transparency is increasingly touted as a strategic tool for elevating journalistic authority. Despite this push, literature has overlooked how transparency can be utilized for authority purposes in audiovisual artefacts. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative thematic analysis of The New York Times’ podcast Caliphate to examine how transparency is strategically weaponized to stake a claim to journalistic authority. Based on the premise that transparency is a metajournalistic performance – a type of journalism about journalism that is performative in acting on people’s perception of journalistic authority – we identify three of those metajournalistic performances in the podcast: Revealing the journalistic process, Constructing the reporter’s persona and Reaffirming the journalistic culture. Together, they exhibit a form of self-celebratory transparency that strategically performs boundary-setting, definitional control and legitimization functions, in a bid to impress audiences and have them recognize the journalistic authority of the Caliphate reporters and The Times. We conclude with the implications of these strategic performances of transparency. First, how it can be used by reporters to reinstate verticality over audiences. Second, how the journalistic culture (norms, values, practices, etc.) can be transparently projected outward (to the public) or inward (to the journalist themself) to elevate authority – a new concept for journalism studies. Third, how metajournalistic performances of transparency may reveal power dynamics within the journalistic field.

透明度越来越被视为提高新闻权威的战略工具。尽管有这种推动力，文学仍忽略了如何将透明性用于视听制品中的权威目的。在本文中，我们对《纽约时报》的播客哈里发进行定性分析，以研究如何在战略上利用透明性来向新闻机构索要版权。基于透明性是一种元新闻的表现（一种关于新闻的新闻形式，在人们对新闻权威的理解上起作用），我们在播客中识别出其中三种：揭示新闻工作者的过程，树立新闻工作者的性格，重申新闻工作者的文化。它们在一起表现出一种自我庆祝的透明性，可以战略性地执行边界设置，定义控制和合法化功能，以打动听众，并使他们认识到《哈里发》记者和《泰晤士报》的新闻权威。我们以透明度的这些战略绩效的含义作为结论。首先，记者如何使用它来恢复受众的垂直度。其次，新闻文化（规范，价值观，做法等）如何透明地向外（向公众）或向内投射（对新闻记者本人）提升权威-新闻学研究的新概念。第三，透明度的元新闻表现如何揭示新闻领域内的权力动态。