The numbers are in. And they are ugly. Trust in British journalism has cratered. A new Reuters Institute report shows just 34% of the public now trust most news most of the time. Down from 40% last year. A record low. The slide has been steady. Relentless. The pandemic briefly boosted ratings. That bump has vanished. Now we face a reckoning.
Let's be honest. This isn't a surprise to anyone who works in this building. The Lobby knows. The public has been telling us for years. They think we are out of touch. Partisan. Corrupt. And they might have a point.
The data cuts deep. Only 29% trust news they consume on social media. The platforms, once seen as the future, are now part of the problem. BBC remains the most trusted brand, but its score has slipped. The Guardian holds steady among the left. The Telegraph among the right. But the middle is hollowing out.
What is driving this? A few things. A perpetual cycle of scandal. Phone hacking. Cash for questions. The Leveson hangover. Then there is Brexit. The referendum split families, and the press chose sides. Now we live with the fallout. Our readers don't recognise themselves in our pages. They see a product, not a public service.
The timing is brutal. Local papers are dying. Dozens close every year. The regional press, once the bedrock of trust, is a skeleton. The online giants eat the advertising. The government refuses to help. The result? News deserts. Communities with no one to hold power to account.
But there is more. The report highlights a growing demand for “news avoidance”. People are switching off. They say it is depressing. They say it is irrelevant. Young people, especially, are drifting away. They get their information from influencers and algorithms. They don't trust the legacy brands. Why would they? We haven't earned it.
Behind the scenes, the panic is real. Editors meet. They wring their hands. They talk about “listening to audiences” and “diversifying revenue”. But the culture does not change. The prize culture prizes scoops over truth. The commentariat dominates. We publish hot takes before the facts are in. We chase clicks. We fuel the outrage machine.
The politicians sense the weakness. Some see an opportunity. The current government is not shy about attacking the BBC. They smell blood. They want to remake the landscape in their image. The press freedom charter, once sacred, is now a bargaining chip.
What can be done? The report offers some prescriptions. More transparency. Corrections that are actually seen. A move away from the horse race model of politics coverage. But the industry is broke. The business model is broken. The will is weak.
I have been in this game for thirty years. I have seen governments fall. I have seen scandals explode. But I have never seen trust this low. This is existential. If we do not change, we will become irrelevant. Not just to the public. To the functioning of democracy itself.
So here is the truth. The press needs a reset. Not a relaunch. A fundamental reckoning. It starts with honesty. With humility. With admitting we have failed. Then we rebuild. It will take a decade. Maybe longer. But the alternative is irrelevance. And that is no alternative at all.
