Up close with the future of media, as the public wants it

What does the annual epic Reuters Institute Digital News Report say about how audiences perceive trust in news media, and is it wrong?

by Rob Corbidge

Published: 15:09, 19 June 2025

Information is a curious creature, as I'm sure our particular publishing audience is more than aware. Lately, a single Facebook post on a local group reminded me that, for all your journalistic training, high standards, and experience, if someone knows a thing, and you don't, it doesn't matter how that gets transmitted to you.

The post in question concerned a spate of motorcycle thefts in the local area. One particular post, written with a level of literacy I am confident of having surpassed by age nine, contained valuable information about the methods the thieves were using, a good idea of where they had been striking, and at what time. The poster was a stranger to grammar, punctuation and regarded capital letters as for use as EMPHASIS only, and even then to a logic I could not discern.

But none of that mattered: it was still trustworthy. A few context-checks revealed that this person was a big motorcycle fan, who had a family which all owned motorbikes too. They were properly clued-in on recent events, and being able to command such detailed information is surely a sign that our poster was not at all unintelligent. Life has long taught me that a lack of flourishing literacy does not necessarily equate to a lack of intelligence, and so it was the case here.

This recent example of useful information in a poor package served as a reminder that, for me, information > production, which also came to mind while reading the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025, published this week.

The overview and key findings of the report are here.

Much is being written on the back of the report's publication, yet it contains little that is surprising. It's worth pointing out that the authorial institute suffers its own biases, demonstrated in the way it approaches social shouting space X for example, writing "It is striking to see that X has not lost reach for news on aggregate across our 12 countries despite a widespread X-odus by liberals and journalists." 

I fear that comes across as echo chamber stuff of an internal dominant narrative. I don't think it's striking information, and feel that anything otherwise is wishful thinking. Whether you agree or not with the direction X has taken, it still has a lot of followers and being blind to that isn't helpful in this kind of report, I'd suggest. 

Also, as Andrey Boborykin points out here, there is almost no mention of Google Discover as a separate traffic source. The news publishing industry might be putting too much hope in this particular Google product, but at the moment, it's the only shaft of light we have in among the more regular shafting Google often gives us.

There is enormous worth in the report though, even if it sometimes reads like a counsel of despair when I'd prefer to read a publishing plan of attack. The section on trust in news is interesting, and the bullet points rendered up by the report's research respondents are worthy of thought.

1. Impartiality: The most frequently mentioned audience complaint relates to the perception that news media push their own agenda rather than presenting evidence in a balanced way. Many respondents say that journalists need to leave their personal feelings at the door. Avoiding loaded or sensationalist language was a repeated theme.

Impartiality, or claims to it, are a trap of their own, as organisations such as the BBC learn all too frequently. Knowing your audience is the antidote to this, as being all things to all people is a recipe for trouble. I've seen personally what happens when a news organisation loses focus on who its audience are and tries to please a wider one. It wasn't pretty. 

All news is subjective, as to have value to an audience it must mean something to them. As for sensationalist language, well, adjectives have their place. The traditional split in UK journalism can be explained through the word "vile". A tabloid newspaper would describe a particularly violent criminal as a "vile thug", a broadsheet would not. A thug cannot be anything other than vile surely? But for some, the modifier seems to hit home.

2. Accuracy and truth telling: Audiences would like journalists to focus on the facts, avoid speculation and hearsay, and to verify and fact-check stories before publishing. Fact-checking the false claims of others was another suggestion to improve the trust of a particular brand. 

If your news stories aren't factual, then your audience will leave you, eventually. People can be fooled a few times when it comes to media, but they mostly aren't stupid. It's the "mostly not stupid" that adherents to the new regime of "fact checking" don't get. 

As the old Soviet joke goes about Pravda and Izvestya, the two main official newspapers: "In Pravda (Truth) there is no news (Izvestya). In Izvestya (News) there is no truth (Pravda)." Folk aren't fooled forever, and click-baiting only works up to a point, eroding core trust as it does so.

3. Transparency: Respondents would like to see more evidence for claims, including fuller disclosure of sources, and better transparency over funding and conflicts of interest. More prominent corrections when publications get things wrong would be appreciated, along with clearer and more distinct labelling around news and opinion.

Without addressing a particular example, and all such examples are intricate and particular, this seems to be the broadest of trust issues. Yet, caveat emptor, if you consume media, then you must yourself have some idea as to biases. It then becomes a matter of whether you can live with them or not. 

The great press barons of the 20th century frequently whipped up their newspapers to lobby for matters directly beneficial to their owners. In our age of content cornucopia, ownership is both less concentrated and often more global in nature. I'd argue it's a better one than that of the old-style Press Baron dominance.

4. Better reporting: Respondents wanted journalists to spend their time investigating powerful people and providing depth rather than chasing algorithms for clicks. Employing more beat reporters who were true specialists in their field was another suggestion for improving trust. 

Digital publishing's original sin was giving away content for free. In the age of GenAI, we're now giving it away for free without even the direct traffic. Until the advertising market becomes equitable again - and it will in some form - and we're not indentured labour for the likes of Sam Altman, then such lofty in-depth reporting by well paid and motivated reporters will remain a challenge  for all but a few organisations. 

It's notable that the audience that asks for such things often does not want to pay for them. 

A generational shift will likely happen, but we're still paying for that original sin.