Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra
In a measurement of public trust in four major areas of society through a five point scale, India ranked fourth position in media. The Edelman Trust Barometer 2024 report published on January 15, 2024 ahead of annual meeting of World Economic Forum at Davos disclosed peoples opinion on business, government, non-government organisations and media in the international level. Indians placed business and NGOs in the first position, and dragged government to the last position.
For preparation of their 24th annual report, Edelman conducted a survey during October and November in 2023 among 32,000 people spread over 28 nations. The objective was focused for collection of peoples opinion on performance in select four areas. Among 28 nations, China acclaimed the first position in trust barometer in media.
Wordwide about 64 percent of people carry the impression that journalists circulate false information with full knowledge of it. Similarly, 63 percent believe that high-ranking government functionaries and 61 percent believe that business leaders convey inaccurate information to the society. “Media remained the least trusted institution globally and was found to be distrusted in 15 of 28 countries including US, Japan and the UK,” the report claimed.
While politicians, government officials and leaders of business communities reveal untruth and false promises, media publicise their words among the public. As a result, journalism proceed in the wrong way in compulsion. Media cannot ignore politicians, government officials and leaders of business communities or publish all of their revelations after thorough scrutiny. In most of the cases the media outlets seek patronage of these three groups for their sustainance in the contemporary practicing business model. The media fail to take-up independent stand.
Analysists raise concern about conduct of elections in about 50 democracies in the international level during 2024 in an environment of loss of public trust in journalism. Media has a pivotal role for smooth functioning of democracy. But when the people no longer believe in journalism, the consequences in the voting pattern is a cause of concern.
Media platforms themselves can only work upon strategies to regain public trust in journalism. Mass Communication professional organizations and journalism training schools may contribute for creating enabling environment for the change. In absence of regular surveys, media platforms particularly language press in India fail to know how their journalism is received by the readers. Such ignorance about acceptability of their product results in negative impact on sustenance of business. When the consumers drift away on account of loss of trust, it becomes difficult to bring back them to the platform again.
Developed nations have taken-up the issue of loss of public faith in media seriously since the middle of the second decade of twenty-first century. Dr Benjamin Toff, a researcher co-authored a book Avoiding the News along with two of his colleagues published in December 2023. The work is based on interviews conducted in US, UK and Spain as well as extensive survey data. The findings putforth in the book carries relevance to understand the key factors responsible for spread of loss of public trust in media and news avoidance.
Firstly, in majority of cases, avoidance of news is the result for the quality of the content of the news. Many people who keep themselves away from news say that they are not going away from news, but the content of news is slipping away from them. “It’s not me, it’s news”. In other words, many research findings marked that the published news in the media are increasingly “depressing, irrelevant, unintelligible and that there isn’t anything they (the consumers) can do about the problems they see in the news anyway.” News avoidance is the result of publication of news that do not affect the life of people and the society. When news do not address to the problems in which people are entangled with, they do not consume it.
Secondly, research findings denote that peoples engagement with the society has direct correlation with their news consumption. “The meaning and value of news to individual citizens is deeply relational, tied in with their identities and communities to which they belong.” Dr Toff stressed, “Research has long shown that a sense of community helps enhance the value of almost any media practice, from romance reading to non fiction to online gaming.”
The newsrooms need to take initiatives to organise news consumer forums for their platforms. News avoidance is the result of some shortcomings in the past. Since newsrooms can not revisit the past for rectification, they have to take damage-control steps to bring-back people to their platforms. The newsrooms should understand that the age of ‘we publish, you read’ is over, artificial intelligence is all set to offer specialised editions for each individual taking into consideration of his or her news preferences.
Thirdly, apart from change in editorial policy formulation, news platforms should adopt consumer-friendly formats for acceptance of their products. For example, a model can be developed by the local print newspapers to publish summeries of all the major contents of the edition in the first page with full description in the inside pages. Dr Toff has remarked, “News avoiders say that they feel news is too time-consuming, a poor fit with daily routine, and incompatible with their caretaking responsibilities at home.” The model will enable the readers to scan across the content in minutes and go to details as per preference and convenience.
Fourthly, spread of media literacy and practice of transparency by the news platforms contribute towards rebuilding public faith in journalism. Investments in this regard translate into long lasting dividends. It is essential to publicise relevance of journalism and its role in democracy in the public sphere. News platforms should contribute collectively for organising such campaigns.
In the New Normal every news platform has to build its unique strategies in editorial, packaging, distribution, evaluation and promotion to enrich its business in a competitive environment, specially to deal with social media and changed consumer behavior. Since news consumers are coming across breaking news from social media and non-news platforms and advancing to websites or newspapers for details, the later have to construct their products taking into consideration changing consumer habits.
Fifthly, enhancing quality and protection of ethical values in journalism can contribute significantly to control the trend of news avoidance. It is being told that if journalism is meant for public good, the people have a role to play for sustenance of journalism. The responsibilities should transcend paying the price of news products. “If journalism is a public good, it deserves a well articulated coordinated pubic defense.” Newsrooms should discuss the issues in news gathering, editing, distribution and business model in public to enhance media literacy in the society which in turn can encourage citizens to participate for protection of news industry. In an era of failure of business models of legacy media platforms and decreasing public trust in media, remedial initiatives are need of the hour. The news platforms need to engineer efforts to build trustworthy, sustainable and independent status in the troubled times.
(English translation of the original Odia newsletter by the author circulated on February 2, 2024. https://pmjournalism.substack.com/p/f8c It is an open-access content, free for translation and reproduction)
Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra is a retired faculty of Journalism, Berhampur University, Odisha.https://about.me/pradeepmahapatra
References:
The Edelman Trust Barometer 2024
Toff, Dr Banjamin et.al. Five things news media can do to respond to consistent news avoidance.
