The global collapse of trust in the media

While it is easy to point the finger at an outdated business model as the cause of the collapse of legacy media news organisations around the world – the real reason for the failure of these platforms is much simpler: we no longer trust them.

Certainly, changes in technology and social trends mean that news consumers are demanding an immediacy that the old model can’t deliver – but they’re bringing on their own demise at a far more rapid rate than needed to be the case by treating their audiences with utter disdain.

For this reason, Stuff Medias offer to save NewsHub here in New Zealand has, at best, only delayed the inevitable commercial failure of both of these hot beds of woke ideology.

And they’re not alone. Last week I posted about the massive drop in trust in NZ news media – but the problem isn’t just confined to NZ. All over the world audiences are turning their backs on once-great news brands because they’ve had enough of the overwhelming bias, partisan political coverage, lack of balance, and condescending attempts to spoon-feed an ideological narrative to us.

Since 2020 there has been a dramatic change in the editorial policy of newsrooms, worldwide, which has meant that you will no longer see stories which provide a conservative perspective or espouse traditional Judeo-Christian views and values – unless the story can be twisted to undermine such values.

This means that you there is no longer a ‘contest of ideas’ to challenge the prevailing narrative around gender ideology, the various assumptions of critical race theory, climate policy, the pro-Hamas/anti-Israel narrative, and a range of other extremist views which are now being pushed by media in what appears to be a bizarre belief that, if you say it often enough, it somehow becomes true.

Given that the consequences of this policy are now starting to be felt on the balance sheets of these organisations, it defies belief that Boards would be allowing it to continue – but apparently the now blindingly obvious reality of ‘go woke, go broke’ is not enough to motivate them to call an end to an experiment which has already caused massive reputational damage to their brands and will ultimately lead to commercial failure.

The next chapter is inevitable. Publicly funded news organisations will survive a little longer because they can disregard the wishes of their audience with impunity; but the other extremist left-leaning media will continue to fail as advertisers and viewers/listeners/readers/potential subscribers switch their patronage to platforms which show them more respect.

What they will be replaced by is anyone’s guess. In the absence of media impartiality, many are already finding their ‘news’ on social media and through channels which reinforce their own worldview – but western audiences are still screaming out for balanced news delivery that provides competing coverage of ALL sides of an issue, delivered in a smart timely manner.

Will it happen?

Watch this space….

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