Research on the declining credibility of established news organizations – this creates opportunities for new ones

Pew Research Center has just released the latest results in an study that has been running since 1983 on the credibility of US news organizations under the title Further Decline in Credibility Ratings for Most News Organizations. Some of the data is shown below.

Source: Pew Research Center for the People & The Press

There is no question that as we experience an increasing profusion of information, there is a very real and greater value to having trusted brands to help filter the overload.

Established media organizations are especially loud in proclaiming the value to users of media brands. However the picture changes if the credibility of those news organizations is eroding.

Reputation is one of the 8 elements that make up our NewsScape of where value resides in a post-channel media world, however that itself has a number of components.

In the reputation economy, brands rise and fall faster than ever. A list of the most influential publications in the world shows that indeed the old, established brands such as New York Times and Reuters are at the top of the tree. However an increasing proportion of brands, and the fastest-rising ones, are new.

People look to news organizations as filters. That has always been true, yet ever more today as we are deluged by information. However social filtering is providing a valuable alternative to news organizations editors in uncovering and selecting the most interesting and relevant news for us.

Many established news organizations of today have to deal with the legacy of outdated channels, most notably news-on-paper. This creates an opportunity for new organizations to establish credibility and build a brand. There is no question that a powerful national or even global news brand could be developed in a matter of years. That is sufficient for people to develop a high degree of trust.

I very much hope to see fresh news brands take advantage of the enormous opportunity offered by the declining credibility of established news organizations. We need news we can trust, and I agree with the consensus that most major news organizations are increasingly not credible.