The Trust in News

The last few years have seen a deluge of mediums trying to become a source of news and capture our attention. There are many mediums providing news not to inform but with the sole purpose to engage. So how does a common man gauge the credibility of the source of information???

How much trust do they have in digital news???

Reuters institute conducted Trust in news project with respondents from Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and the United States which put together account for more than one billion internet users. The study’s goal was to understand what drives trust for audiences in different contexts and to identify evidence-based recommendations for publishers and platforms. News consumption patterns were studied for WhatsApp, Facebook and Google with participants being taken through one medium at a time.??

Generally, those who were untrusting audiences did not read much news on social media. They tend to focus on soft news topics like entertainment, celebrity and scandals. Many do not click to know more but tend to base their judgements on headlines and visuals backed up by what they perceived about the brand. Political news on these sites was least trusted and was generally neglected. Respondents looked at specific cues to see if they could rely on the news.??

Readers tend to rely on elements like the number of likes, and who has liked or shared the news. Respondents hardly bothered about the source of information in all three mediums. But there were concerns about what factors determined what news was being shown to them. Trust was low for news found on social media. Many readers have a dim view of Journalistic practices and a majority believed that journalists’ personal views are clouding the news reportage and analysis. The least trusting tended to be the older, less educated, less interested in politics and less connected to Urban centres. A key finding from the report showed that there is a strong correlation between the level of trust in news and how satisfied people are with the way democracy is functioning.??

Google was the most trusted platform for news. WhatsApp was trusted by 57% of Indians but only by 28% in the UK and 32% in the US. Trust in Facebook also varied across countries with 65% in India trusting it as a medium but only 35% and 29% in US and UK respectively.??

Facebook journalism project has funded the Reuters trust in news project which shows how serious the social media giant is in creating a wall within which it wants the user to stay and get the news along with all the offerings.??

News organizations that are grappling with trust issues are unable to find the right metrics to understand how much trust is placed on them by their audiences. They tend to narrow down the funnel on which audiences they would like to trust and often it’s the audience that has the potential for taking subscriptions.??

Trust will slowly emerge as the biggest factor of success for all mediums posing as News providers. If findings from this report are integrated into dashboard analytics and workings of news organizations, it would go a long way in not only building trust but also a sustainable future for news media organizations.?

This is a guest post by Nitin Suresh. He works as a brand strategist with a leading media firm and is a product developer and researcher. He is also a poet at heart, a passionate quizmaster and a freelance writer.??