Looks like there is still some time before we can determine if the news media is melting down, but one thing is clear: audience trust in the news definitely is. Australian as well as global data reveals that audience trust remains at a record low to the extent that most are turning away from conventional news sources towards alternative platforms looking for news they can trust and relate with.
It is, however, not only the audience that is slowly moving away.
Over the last couple of years, an increasing number of journalists, among them many award-winning, have quit their jobs at legacy media and launched their own independent news startups which claim to offer unencumbered analysis and promise to address the crisis of credibility and quality in the news media.
Barkha Dutt's Mojo Story in India is a fascinating example. Dutt, a former NDTV star reporter and Emmy nominee, launched Mojo Story in late 2019 after sensing a continuous decline in audience trust in legacy media. In 2020, when the Indian government was attempting to censor coverage of the COVID-19-related health crisis, Mojo Story emerged as one of the few leading news sources providing indispensable coverage through its YouTube channel and website with its 60-second, 60-word and 60-minute formats. Similarly, Filipino journalist Karen Davila was prompted to seek alternative media platforms amid job cuts and closures; John-Allan Namu, a Kenyan investigative journalist, co-founded Africa Uncensored to ‘investigate, expose and empower’; and exiled Afghan journalist Zahra Joya launched the Rukhshana Media agency to report on life of women under the Taliban.
It seems to be somehow effectively working in the Global South, but these shifts that have the potential to change the very landscape of journalism are a big concern for many in the Western media profession and research.
Merely switching platforms doesn’t guarantee honest reporting or rebuilding audience confidence – something figures like Tucker Carlson have shown us. Soon after Carlson was ousted by Fox News in 2023 for getting 'too big for his boots', he launched The Tucker Carlson Network or the TCN, which garnered a whopping 209 million views for his recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Where does this tug of war between legacy media and emerging alternative media platforms to retain audience numbers leave the audience, who are already fracturing and increasingly polarised, confused and upset. Maybe it is time to consider updating traditional editorial models, most of which were designed in the pre-social media era. With bias-free reporting, freedom of press, and more diverse perspectives – as witnessed in the promising public interest journalism produced by ABC's Four Corners in their recent 'The Forever War' report – there is hope that trust in media will return, because Facebook money isn’t. Not anytime soon.
Ayesha Jehangir, CMT Postdoctoral Fellow