2022-06-25
Well, with summer now in full swing (unless you want to travel by train or plane ... ) we have news!
If you can trust it.
The Press Gazette ("The Future of Media") reports on the tanking trust ratings earned by the various news-stand titles, and the current state of play for trustworthy TV news.
It's an interesting analysis, one primary point being that (allegedly) the broadcast TV news tends to be believed more than the newspapers, and whereas a minority makes it over the 50% threshold, none can boast 60%.
And if you are looking to identify the brands that increased their trust rating over the recent years, your hopefulness exceeds your realism.
"Overall, the Reuters Institute report this year found that in part due to a decline in trust, nearly half (46%) of all British people often avoid reading the news at all"
I note that Reuters is possibly the most well-established and well-known news agency in the business, from which a significant proportion of the "news" that seems to be so distrusted is sourced by these various outlets, so the Reuters Institute should probably not be regarded as a disinterested party.
And finally it is worth noting that whereas the survey covered the mainstream media outlets (including some newcomers such as GB News), no attempt seems to have been made to assess the trustworthyness of alternative internet-only outlets (so yours truly is spared embarrassment for this year).
So to summarise: the sceptics are in the ascendant, and at this rate, critical mass may be here before we know it.
