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Tags containing: "trust"

Industry-Research

Understanding the dimensions of trust in the news media

Accuracy and transparency are vital elements of quality journalism that both play into another critical component: trust. Therefore, understanding consumer trust (or lack of it) is essential in today’s news media business. A new report, American Views 2022: Part 2, from Gallup and the Knight Foundation, examines the emotional dimensions of trust and how they relate to how people feel about news organizations. Further, the research provides insight into emotional triggers in today’s media environment providing a deeper understanding of consumer sentiment.

Using six questions designed by Gallup and Knight, the research measures five dimensions of consumer trust ‒ competency, reliability, benevolence (societal and individual), and integrity. Analytics then determine respondent segments from low to high levels of emotional trust. The spectrum of emotional trust offers important subtext to topline findings. For example, 61% of respondents find it harder to be well-informed because of the overwhelming number of information sources. Among consumers with low emotional trust in national news, this percentage jumps to 76%.

In contrast, the percentage remains at 60% among those with high emotional trust. The sharp increase among those with low emotional trust shows that this setting triggers low confidence and frustration in navigating a complex media news ecosystem. Notably, the emotional trigger is external and not related to the news organizations’ reporting competency.

Trust in the news media

Gallup and Knight’s research finds consumer dissatisfaction with the news media at a record low of 26%. Older segments, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation appear more favorable toward the news media (33% and 34% very or somewhat favorable, respectively) in comparison to less favorable younger cohorts ‒ Gen Z (58%), millennials (56%), and Gen X (55%).

The perception of political bias in news coverage is also driving low favorability. More than half of Americans (55%) say there is “a great deal” of political bias in news reporting compared to surveys results in 2019-early 2020 and 2017 (46%, and 45%, respectively).

However, despite the level of dissatisfaction, 72% of Americans agree (strongly agree/agree) that national news organizations have the resources and opportunity to report news accurately and fairly to the public.

News favorability

Unfavorable opinions of the news media correlate with low emotional trust in national news organizations. Slightly more than two-thirds (67%) of consumers with unfavorable opinions of the news media have low emotional trust. Among those with a favorable or very favorable view of the media, 56% have high emotional trust in national news organizations.

Interestingly, 44% of consumers report high emotional trust in local news organizations, compared to 21% who have high emotional trust in national news organizations. These findings are consistent across political parties; 31% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats trust local news organizations among those with high emotional trust in local news.  

Trust motivates consumers to pay for news

Slightly more than one-quarter of consumers (26%) report paying to access news or donating to a news organization. Applying the dimensions of emotional trust shows that those with higher emotional trust in the news are likelier to pay for it (35%) compared to 23% with low emotional trust.

Gallup and Knight’s research includes a nuanced approach to understanding and correlating consumer trust of the news media. Adding an understanding of the dimensions of trust provides richer context. It offers links to drivers of low emotional trust and favorability, such as information overload or fear of navigating the information ecosystem. National and local news organizations should identify these external triggers and discuss the issues and potential solutions with their audience.  

Featured Post | Innovation

How Insider uses Twitter Q&As to increase transparency and trust

In an era where journalism faces a crisis of trust among audiences, Insider has taken to Twitter. 

Since 2021, Insider has done over a dozen live Twitter conversations called #TheInsideStory with its staff – from its Singapore bureau chief, to travel and entertainment editors, to reporters covering finance and health. The goal of the series is to help its audience connect with the newsroom and better understand why its staff are passionate about the beats they cover, says Alexandra Cancino, Insider’s Marketing Communications Manager. 

In June 2022, Insider did a proprietary study with its readers called Minding the Generation Gap: Media Usage & Trust Across Generations, to better understand how different generation demographics consume and trust media. They found that 94% of Insider readers feel that trustworthiness of a source is important, which reinforced the idea behind The Inside Story according to Cancino. 

The series kicked off in September 2021 with a live Q&A with Conz Preti, Insider’s parenting + health editor. The goal of the series is to give the audience a behind-the-scenes look at how Insider’s journalism is done. It also gives Insider’s journalists and editors a chance to talk about work, their networks, and their interests. 

With six more scheduled through to the end of the year, the series outlines how reporters and editors work. They showcase the breadth and depth of reportage and help grow journalists’ profiles. 

“We’re able to use these Q&As as a way to give readers a ‘behind-the-scenes’ peek at who our reporters and editors are, as well as how they perform their craft, including how they source, vet, and share information,” Cancino says. “We want them to feel what feels like a personal relationship with Insider and get to know the correspondents and editors better and why they do what they do.”

Insider view

In one Q&A, Insider spoke with media correspondent Reed Alexander, who was a finance reporter at the time of his Twitter conversation. As a finance reporter, Alexander wrote about the global economy, Wall Street, banks, and markets. The Inside Story gave Alexander the opportunity to get his work in front of a potentially broader audience. It also allowed him to share a side of him that his colleagues didn’t often get to see. 

“I had the opportunity to share with our Insider community some of what makes me passionate about business reporting, as well as to share insights into my other undertakings, like teaching a journalism class to undergrads at the University of Miami,” he said. It also “allowed me to share a side of my life that my work community doesn’t often get to see — for instance, pointing out some of my mentors in the newsroom, and explaining how I transitioned from the entertainment industry to a life in journalism.”

Earlier in October, Insider also did a Twitter Q&A with Health Correspondent Hilary Brueck focusing on what was happening in the public health sphere. As a health correspondent, Brueck writes about all facets of public health, including debunking health misinformation and reporting on health-related news. 

“The Q&A was a nice opportunity to highlight some of my recent work and share how I approach stories on my beat,” she said. The best part of the Q&A, according to Brueck, “was probably the unexpected opportunity it gave me to connect and reconnect with colleagues and sources who I’ve worked with through the years.”

Evaluating engagement

The live Twitter Q&As have had a knock-on effect in terms of engagement following the events. 

Cancino said the Q&As generated thousands of impressions on Twitter and a strong engagement rate — more than 100x Twitter’s benchmark. (According to Statista, the overall Twitter engagement rate is .04%.)

“Our reporters do a great job engaging with and tagging people, groups, and organizations they work with, and those accounts often engage back via retweets and replies,” Cancino said. 

“I definitely saw an uptick in likes and retweets on my tweets generally,” Alexander says. “It’s always difficult to isolate or pinpoint one reason for anything as a driver of a broader phenomenon, but certainly I would say it was a benefit for engagement.” 

Takeaways

With public trust of national news organizations in decline and widening partisan divides, news organizations are wise to embrace strategies to combat it and regain trust. Contemporary research suggests that transparency is a strategy to improve the public trust and brand perceptions, which in turn presents a way to restore and strengthen trust in journalism. 

Perhaps the industry should do showing, not just telling. Insider has found that its Inside Story Twitter Q&As offer just such an opportunity.

“As journalists we should be coming out behind the veil and making ourselves available. We are asking sources … to avail themselves and be open with us. I do think there is an expectation or a best practice of doing that reflexively for our audience and giving them a sense of who we are,” Alexander says. 

Being accessible and visible to the audiences and communities that journalists engage with will make them better practitioners of journalism, Alexander says. “I think it’s a great thing for other journalists to be doing… We want people to come to us for various reasons, to engage with us, to read our content, to share information. You know, how do people know where to find you if you are not really available to them and readily accessible?”

Industry-Research

Fake news sites impact readers and the entire industry

Since 2004 almost 1,800 local newspapers have closed their doors in the U.S. alone. Oddly, though — and despite an economic downturn — it appears that a slew of new local news outlets have emerged online. Unfortunately, one needs to take a good look under the hood before celebrating this trend.

In October 2019, the Lansing State Journal uncovered dozens of websites branded as local news outlets throughout Michigan that posed as local news but instead were outlets for political messaging. Again in 2020, The New York Times reported that the local site, Maine Business Daily, is part of a network of 1,300 questionable websites. They look like local-news outlets, but the stories are directed by political and corporate public relations firms. Algorithms create much of the content on these sites. 

While investigative reporting uncovered these sites, little is known about their impact on readers. The Tow Center’s new report, Reader perspectives on local partisan news sites, examines how local news audiences assess and interpret these so-called news sites. In particular, the research explores whether news consumers infer any bias in the reporting of these sites, how they navigate and respond to these pseudo-local news websites, and how this affects consumer trust in news.

Methodology

The Tow Center recruited 90 participants to assess these local news sites.

  • Participants completed an initial survey about their local news consumption habits and needs and assessed their assigned local website. 
  • They completed a daily diary exercise to detail their experience of using their assigned website and other local news outlets over five consecutive days.
  • Participants offered a final reflection about their assigned website, addressing issues such as how, if at all, it improved their understanding of local issues and assessed trustworthiness. 

Local site general assessment

Two-thirds of participants recorded an initial negative impression of their assigned website. Reasons for a negative response included the lack of updates and relevant content. The remaining third reported a positive impression, they noted a favorable impression of the sites’ layout and design, lack of paywalls, and mobile responsiveness. Interestingly, only one-third of participants claimed there was conservative bias in their assigned outlet’s editorial coverage.

The most common response from participants throughout the five-day diary exercise was frustration at the lack of new content and the prominence of outdated content on the homepage. Upon repeated visits, they found the content mostly irrelevant to their daily lives and communities and noted it as “odd,” “weird,” and “bizarre.” 

Supplied with automated, data-filled stories, these local sites offered few articles with reporter bylines. Most participants found the automated stories to be disconnected from their communities. In addition, respondents reported that the sites were all about politics and little of anything else.

Perceptions of trustworthiness and bias

While most final impressions were negative, the question of these sites’ trustworthiness and potential bias was somewhat mixed. Many participants excused the sites for their low-cost, algorithmically generated output. While most participants rated the outlets as untrustworthy, there was a narrow majority rating the coverage as fair and balanced.

A strong majority did not look for information about site ownership until prompted and said it did not cross their minds to investigate even with an unfamiliar news source. Only a minority of participants investigated the ownership of their assigned site and describing the lack of transparency as “shocking,” “unsettling,” “odd,” and “worrying.”

Despite the industry’s emphasis on fake news and misinformation, some participants accepted these sites at face value, despite the site’s clear lack of objectivity and partisan status. Consumers do not seem to focus on identifying who owns and operates a news source. Unfortunately, their opinions of this sort of site will affect the broader industry as they fail to distinguish between these partisan sites and legitimate news sources. With the 2024 elections approaching, the news media must address consumers about the importance of considering the source of their information and reinforcing the value of trusted, reputable local news brands.

Featured Post | Revenue

Audience trust drives Wirecutter’s affiliate strategy

Leilani Han
Executive Director of Commerce, Wirecutter

Affiliate marketing is a dynamic endeavor, with myriad factors driving strategic decisions on how to sustain a healthy revenue stream while maintaining consumer trust.

In this Q & A, Leilani Han, Wirecutter’s executive director of commerce, shares her insights on strategies driving Wirecutter’s success.

DCN: There appears to be a renewed or intensified interest in affiliate marketing as a revenue diversification strategy. How do you see it?

Han: There’s always been a keen interest in affiliate marketing, but the space has certainly evolved with who was investing in the channel over the last 10 years. In our space, we’ve seen many media companies realize this was a smart strategy for engaging with your audience more deeply while providing a service to them that could evolve into a revenue stream.

This coincided with an evolution in the consumers’ relationship with their shopping journey. Affiliate has the unique capabilities of encompassing all channels so that it fits in perfectly with social media, the internet, and being able to provide greater value to people’s lives.

Wirecutter has been at the forefront of this trend, as we helped to prove to others this model could scale successfully. Today, millions of readers turn to Wirecutter’s advice for inspiration and making smarter shopping decisions.

DCN: What is your company’s approach to affiliate marketing, content/commerce mix, video, social?

Han: Our recommendations – and affiliate marketing – have always been at the core of our business since its 2011 launch. While we’re technically classified as commerce content, we don’t separate our work into content or commerce. We are simply focused on providing the best service journalism to our readers.

Compared to competitors, we are not in the business of worshiping products. We are in the business of helping users find out what is worth paying for and what is the best product for the price. We employ a journalistic, methodical process to uncover the right information.

We make a recommendation – not just a review. We communicate in a way that is relatable and direct – not academic. Wirecutter cuts the time and stress of shopping by providing direct and actionable buying advice.

We knew if we took care of the reader experience and prioritized their trust in us above all else, the monetization follows. That’s an indication we’re hitting the mark on being helpful to them. That’s a balance we have to strike to serve our readers and our ability to monetize. Our team does a great job of finding that balance.

As digital innovation has evolved over the years, so have the channels through which we can reach our audiences. We view video and social media as another way to introduce new readers to our advice while reaching them in the moment in the spaces where they’re organically spending their time.

DCN: What are the driving factors underscoring where to put the efforts?

Han: Our core mission is to serve our readers with helpful advice and earn their trust. Our recommendations are at the center of our efforts. We try to be thoughtful about how we engage with our audiences and whether we’re successful in meeting their needs.

We aim to be as impartial as possible from any business interests. Our approach is being transparent through every point of the user experience. 

The affiliate model aligns well with our reader service mission because we do not earn commissions if we are not successful in earning trust and making the right recommendations. A successful affiliate business is a clear indicator we are doing right by the reader. The data helps inform us whether we’re meeting the mark on what readers need advice on and what to buy.

Learn more about the Wirecutter’s policy.

DCN: How do you mitigate the inherent challenges?

Han: One of the biggest challenges at the beginning is figuring out what resonates with your readers, how you can gain traction with them to return and click through to purchase, and then scaling that in a way that honors your service for your readers. While affiliate marketing can be a very meaningful revenue stream, it is not as turnkey as some other channels. It requires time, effort, and a lot of testing to eventually find the sweet spot of your editorial voice and how to monetize effectively.

Another challenge is in how to strike the right balance between sources that are key drivers of your business and ensuring you’re diversified enough to withstand changes that are outside of your control.

One example of this for Wirecutter is organic search and the ever-changing algorithms that can impact how much traffic is coming to your site.

Last fall, we launched a subscription product because we know that our journalism is worth paying for and we are focused on deepening our relationship with our readers. This allows us to reach these readers directly and lessen our reliance on other traffic sources to bring readers back to Wirecutter. So far, we are seeing positive results that confirm our belief that Wirecutter’s service journalism is a meaningful resource in people’s lives.

Despite our priority to grow our subscriber base, we are continuing to focus on our affiliate business as well. Our affiliate business model remains unchanged. If you click a link on our site and buy something we recommend, we may receive a commission.

As always, our writers and editors are never made aware of any business relationships we have with retailers. We’ll continue to make picks independent of all business and financial interests. Those things will never change: helping readers make the right buying decisions will always come first.

The change happening with browser updates and privacy regulations is also top of mind for many publishers and what the deprecation of cookies means for the industry. Many of the major affiliate networks have been addressing this by updating their tracking technology to help mitigate any losses from these changes, while Wirecutter has proprietary technology that has also helped us to mitigate any loss.

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Digital trust and safety: Do you have what it takes?

It’s not hard to see that digital advertising is undergoing another paradigm shift. Spurred by pandemic-fueled online use and continued cyber-driven attacks, consumers are becoming more aware of internet dangers. From ransomware and credit card theft to scams and inappropriate content, consumers have had enough.

Today’s consumers want to feel cared for and cared about. They also prefer brands whose values align with their own.

Recognizing this sentiment, brands seek to showcase how they contribute to building a better world as evidenced by multiple initiatives covering diversity, sustainability, and responsible programming. For publishers, this consumer-first mentality extends to the online environment, where brands are looking to safeguard consumer expectations of privacy and security.

Welcome to digital trust and safety.

A new era in digital

Digital trust and safety requires understanding and addressing the harmful content and/or conduct experienced by consumers when accessing websites/mobiles apps. This ranges from how digital products are built, managed, and promoted through to how they make consumers think, feel, and act. In effect, it’s all about putting the consumer at the center of decisions regarding their online experience.

This thinking is critical when you consider the different risks faced by different consumers, especially the more vulnerable members of society, e.g., elderly, children, technologically naive.

Layer on the reality of targeting and national security risks become apparent as government and military employees are consumers, too.

Accepting responsibility for the consumer experience transforms how the industry—brands, AdTech, publishers—approaches its contribution to the consumer experience. Instead of  focusing on activity that affects a business (viewability, ad fraud or brand safety), you prioritize actions that impact the consumer to build trust. As Conny Braams, Unilever’s Chief Digital and Commercial Officer recently acknowledged, “The currency in Web 3.0 is not crypto, it’s trust.” It has become clear: Digital trust and safety is the next phase in the digital evolution chain. 

The evolution is underway—just look at the new and growing crop of job titles on LinkedIn.

Factors driving digital trust and safety

Going beyond ad fraud, content moderation, bots and other brand-oriented initiatives, digital trust and safety is all about the consumer. It is driven by security, data privacy, and trusted content.

  • Security: Protecting consumers and their devices from malicious, anomalous, compromised, or non-compliant code that enables distribution of backdoors, credit card theft, ransomware, cryptomining, etc.
  • Data privacy: Guarding against unauthorized tracking of consumer activity, especially when performed by unknown parties
  • Trusted content: Ensuring the substance of the experience doesn’t endanger consumer well-being, e.g., false claims, misinformation, online scams, etc.

With digital at the nexus of companies and consumers, there’s nothing more important than safeguarding the user experience. It’s more than ad fraud and blocking ads. This focus on safety and security encompasses the entire consumer experience.

Adopting a consumer-first approach isn’t hard, but it does require unwavering dedication. Once executives agree that consumer well-being is important, this thinking will cascade to permeate all aspects of the business. All it takes is consistently asking and documenting the impact on consumers for key touchpoints and commercial initiatives, from product introduction and feature development to marketing promotions and customer service. This  guiding principle will add clarity to and inform decisions. It can also serve as a competitive differentiator elevating your business in the eyes of the market.

It’s your move

Government leaders and regulators are listening. Various initiatives are underway to protect  consumer online experiences: UK Online Safety Act, EU Digital Services Act, ban on surveillance advertising, more limits on data collection, and more.

Collectively, the industry needs to stop harmful activity as it enters the digital ecosystem and  ultimately before it is served to consumers. Frankly, it’s the right thing to do. That’s how we engender trust, and a trusting consumer will buy more (90% of consumers would buy more from a brand they trust).

Ask yourself: Are you willing to put the consumer first when it comes to digital? I’m game. Are you?

Industry-Research | Research

Understanding low-trust audiences and how to reach them

Mental shortcuts, snap judgments, gut feelings: everyone uses these to some degree while navigating an increasingly overwhelming news landscape. However, new research finds that these instant reactions are even more prevalent among the 25% of the population with the lowest trust in news. Low trust audiences are more likely to receive the bulk of their news incidentally while engaged in other online activities such as socializing, shopping, or searching for specific information pertinent to their daily lives. Significantly, low trust aligns with low interest. These individuals are unlikely to visit news sites on purpose. They are also the least-studied segment of the population when it comes to news-related behavior.

It is important that content providers understand the impact of snap judgments because they occur upstream of further engagement with news material. Research from the Trust in News Project out of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford offers insights based upon an exploration of the behaviors and habits of this audience segment.

News, cues, and clues

The report, Snap judgements: how audiences who lack trust in news navigate information on digital platforms was based upon a qualitative study that involved participants from four countries: Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and the United States. One hundred individuals were interviewed in depth via videoconference as they used one of three platforms: Google, Facebook, or WhatsApp, between December 2021 and January 2022.

Six types of cues were found to serve as as shortcuts for evaluating news:

  • Pre-existing ideas about news in general or particular news media brands, including reputation and perceived reliability of the news outlet.
  • Social endorsement cues, especially from friends and family.
  • Tone and word choice of headlines, with a skepticism for headlines that seem sensationalized.
  • Visual cues, with a preference for photographs and videos perceived as recent and relevant, as well as numerical data and links to other sources.
  • Presence of advertising or indications of sponsored content are often seen as indicative of bias and profit-driven motives.
  • Platform-specific cues such as Facebook likes and Google search engine rankings. (insert cues graphic)

Comfort and control

The study found low-trust individuals have much more favorable opinions of Google, Facebook and WhatsApp than they do of professional news sources. They consider these platforms valuable tools used in everyday life, whereas many stated most news is irrelevant to them. In fact, some perceive news as an attempt to manipulate them; many stated that politicians control major news sources. In “shoot the messenger” fashion, low-trust users tend to conflate content they dislike or find upsetting with news journalists or brands.

News reports on hot topics such as politics and issues that have become politically charged such as the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic are viewed with particular skepticism by the sample group. Participants indicated that content providers have more incentive to be untruthful about such topics.

Low-trust users are more likely to look favorably upon information presented in a manner perceived as enabling them to make up their own minds. Some participants cited the presence of numerical data or links to other sources as indications that news was reliable, while others praised Google search results as such a resource.

Addressing the audience gap

While some of the 25% have overtly hostile feelings towards news organizations, indifference is more to blame for lack of engagement. Lack of knowledge in how journalism works is also a factor. Those aware of their limited knowledge may be less confident in their ability to decipher content and more likely to ignore it altogether or rely on opinions of trusted social contacts.

Trust-building strategies employed by digital news organizations tend to focus on the behavior and practices of the savviest news consumers. This makes sense if the goal is to solidify one’s base. However, expanding outreach requires more understanding of the less-engaged 25%. Building relationships with new user groups requires deeper understanding of how they engage with their platforms of choice.

This research is significant for digital media providers because it represents data from the least-studied segment of the population, and because the findings are not limited to this group. While some of the cues relied on by these users are under exclusive control of digital platforms, others can be utilized by news providers. The study has compelling implications for how information can best be conveyed to those hardest to reach.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion | Industry-Research

Media companies build trust when they address audience concerns

No other business sector has more cultural relevance than media. Media shapes perception, but public perception deeply affects the media industry. Because of this, media companies need to identify the social discussions and issues in society and find a balance in addressing them without alienating their audience.

New research, Media Materiality 2022, conducted by the Responsible Media Forum with consultant Carnstone Partners Ltd, identifies the material sustainability issues for the media sector in the UK, Europe, and North America based on a three-tier research plan:

  • Reviews of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting frameworks, investor indices, and recent (2019 or later) materiality assessments published by companies participating (Axel Springer, BBC, Dentsu, ITV, and others) in the Responsible Media Forum. 
  • Interviews with senior sustainability practitioners from media companies, including advertising, broadcast, entertainment providers, news publishing, and telecommunications. 
  • Interviews with external experts, including ESG thought-leaders, investors, policymakers, non-governmental, organizations, and third sector (non-profits, social enterprises, cooperatives, etc.).

Identifying material issues

To build trust between a media company and its target audience, a company needs to take responsibility for its role in, and take a stand on, meaningful issues. There are consequences when a company fails to act. For example, Disney and its CEO, Bob Chapek face backlash due to company’s donations to Florida politicians who support the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Critics of Disney felt that that the company did not stand up for its LGBTQ employees, cast members, and guests. And fallout thus far has included widespread media coverage, employee walkouts and a public apology.

These sorts of situations are becoming increasingly prevalent. Thus, it is critical for organizations to understand the issues that are significant to staff, stakeholders, and their customers.

Responsible Media Forum defines material issues as “financially significant over the short to medium term.” These have the potential “to affect a key financial indicator, e.g., profits or revenue, by around five percent or more within two years.” These issues were found to be material: climate change, cyber security data privacy, diversity, equity & inclusion, people management, responsible content, skills development, sustainable value chain, and well-being.

Interestingly, both fake news and net neutrality are no longer identified as material issues as they were in the 2018 report. Important material issues for publishers to incorporate into their best practices.

Responding to material issues

  • While the media’s carbon footprint is relatively small, integrating climate change content can encourage behavioral shifts in society.
  • Data privacy is an essential practice of media companies. With privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), becoming standard practices, publishers should communicate how they collect and use consumer data. 
  • In 2018, the Responsible Media Forum now includes “equity” as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Equity refers to the creation of a level playing field and increased commitment to diversity in both developing and retaining talent and entry-level recruitment. This is an important issue among those under 40 years old. DCN’s research on Gen Z Digital Media Attitudes, Values & Behavior shows that both Gen Z and Gen Y see this as the foremost issue companies should care about today.
  • Responsible content is crucial for publishers. Media companies are responsible for their content across their portfolios and usage of intermediaries. Related concerns include diversity of output, editorial compliance, creative independence, transparent and responsible editorial policies, freedom of expression, impartial and & balanced output, and promotion of causes.
  • Media companies must invest in their employees. Skill development, including training and mentoring, are strong retention tactics, especially against tech platforms.
  • A sustainable value chain is important to manage. Media companies need to manage the upstream and downstream of their supply chain beyond their own needs to support.
  • The 2018 report expanded the definition of well-being to include a focus on mental health. With the Pandemic and employees working from home, it’s no surprise that mental stress is an integral part of the wellness category.

Other areas to watch

In addition, the Forum identified three additional categories to determine whether an issue did not meet its materiality threshold but still represented an important matter.

  1. Strategic: an issue that can significantly affect the ability of the company to deliver its strategy in the medium to long term.
  2. Operational: an issue that matters for internal, reputational, and efficiency but is neither material nor strategic.
  3. Emerging: an issue that is not yet widely on the radar of a company but is increasing in importance and expected to become a material or strategic issue within the next two years.

Media plays a critical role in reflecting and responding to the needs of society. This report provides a starting point for media companies to access material issues and other key areas of potential concern in order to better meet audience expectations.

Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

How to build user and advertiser trust with Trust.txt  

In the vast world of online media, it can be hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. Fake websites spread disinformation and some even profit off of the hard work of legitimate media by scraping content and presenting it as their own. Even tech companies have a hard time determining which websites are legit. In the past, publishers didn’t have many tools to fight back, but their arsenal is growing.  

One of the more recent developments in this area is Trust.txt, a tool from the non-profit JournalList to help quality publishers stand out from less credible websites. Industry organizations like Digital Content Next and the Alliance for Audited Media have joined Trust.txt to help members gain recognition for good work. However, it also helps if publishers participate in the program by hosting their own Trust.txt file, so let’s explore the benefits of using this framework on your site. 

4 ways Trust.txt can help legitimate publishers stand out from the rest 

1) A simple way to signal legitimacy  

When publishers join an industry association, they are committing to an organization that typically has a set of standards and rules in place. These organizations usually vet their members. Trust.txt is a framework developed to help establish online relationships between publishers and the trusted industry organizations and associations to which they belong, and to make that offline association easy to determine. By participating in Trust.txt, publishers signal to advertisers and tech platforms that they are legitimate media providers committed to quality, integrity, and industry standards. Participation is as simple as creating a file and uploading it to your website. It’s an easy way for publishers to take a stand for quality and stand out in a crowded market. 

2) Fight back against fraudsters  

Part of the Trust.txt framework requires participating industry organizations (like DCN or AAM) to host a file that lists all publisher members on their websites. This establishes a signal that these members have made a commitment to the organization and the industry. To make this connection even stronger, publishers should also host their own Trust.txt files that list the industry organizations they belong to. Publishers can make Trust.txt work even harder when they also include all domains and social media accounts they own. Since fraudsters can set up fake websites and social media accounts to look like a real media brand, Trust.txt is a simple way for publishers to make it known exactly what domains they own and which social media accounts are under their control. 

3) Let advertisers know you are committed to quality 

Trust.txt is a text file similar to other initiatives such as robots.txt and ads.txt. Since it is only a text file, it does not interfere with website load times or content management systems, but it can make a significant impact in other ways. When a search engine crawls a website, it will find the Trust.txt file and read its content. Creating a machine-readable file provides an easy way for search engines to make the connection between trusted publishers and associations. As the program grows, advertisers may also begin to recognize Trust.txt as a tool to help them identify legitimate media partners. 

4) Strength in numbers 

Industry organizations exist and succeed because there is strength in numbers. By growing the industry organizations and publishers that participate in Trust.txt, ad tech platforms and search engines will recognize the initiative as a way to identify quality media from the millions of other websites on the internet. The more organizations and publishers that participate, the greater the impact of the program on the industry.  

At a time when misinformation is on the rise, it’s important that quality media stick together and find solutions to help trusted publishers stand out from the rest. Trust.txt has emerged as a simple tool that allows publishers to take the fight against fraudsters into their own hands.  

Industry-Research

Getting consumers to trust quality information is critical

A trusted reputation is crucial for publishers. And, despite the clickbait appeal of fake news, most people value accuracy and truthful content. Research has confirmed time and again that people want to engage more with articles shared by trusted journalists and media outlets, especially on social media.

  • 89% of Americans believe it is “very important” for a news outlet to be accurate and 86% that it is “very important” that they correct their mistakes (Knight Foundation, 2018),
  • 85% say that accuracy is a critical reason for why they trust a news source (The Media Insight Project, 2016).
  • 63% of Americans say they have stopped getting news from an outlet in response to fake news.

However, fake news and low-quality content are still prevalent, amplified, and generating tremendous engagement. Misinformation is not limited by reality and often feeds natural individual biases.

Fighting fake news

The question remains where do publishers place their efforts in the fight against fake news? New research from Alberto Acerbi, Sacha Altay, and Hugo Mercier, Fighting misinformation or fighting for information? explores whether publishers should fight the spread of misinformation or support the trust in reliable sources. Interestingly, the researchers found that it is just as likely that consumers will accept articles and sound bites of fake news reporting as it is for them to reject a piece of accurate news reporting.

The authors developed a model that estimates the effectiveness of increasing the acceptance of reliable news compared to decreasing the acceptance of misinformation. The model includes two main parameters: the share of misinformation compared to the share of reliable information and the tendency for individuals to accept each type of information.

  • Reliable information refers to news shared by sources that, most of the time, report news accurately,
  • Misinformation refers to news shared by sources that regularly share fake and deceptive information.

The model provides a baseline view of the informational environment and offers an approximate index of its quality. Using these broad definitions, the model design includes 5% of misinformation as people’s news diets, with the remaining 95% consisting of information from reliable sources. Importantly the model captures the main elements of an informative environment: the incidence of reliable information compared to misinformation and the tendency to accept each type of information.

The model computes a global information score. The calculation represents the share of accepted pieces of reliable information minus the share of accepted pieces of misinformation.

Simulated exposure

A small sample of individuals simulated in the model were exposed to both reliable and fake news. A larger sample of individuals simulated were exposed only to reliable news. The researchers tested different intervention rates of reducing the acceptance rate of misinformation compared to increasing the acceptance of reliable information.

The researchers analyzed the different interventions rates. The basic simulation illustrates that, even with a 10% incidence of misinformation, improving the acceptance of reliable information by 3% points is more effective than bringing acceptance of misinformation to zero. Therefore, interventions that increase the acceptance of reliable information have a greater effect than interventions on misinformation.

Acerbi, Altay, and Mercier demonstrate the importance understanding the impact of different interventions in the informational landscape. Publishers that place their efforts on increasing the acceptance of reliable information will have a greater effect in the fight against fake news.

These findings do not dispute the many efforts to fight misinformation. However, given publishers’ limited resources, more efforts should be dedicated to increasing trust in reliable sources of information rather than in fighting misinformation.

two cranes in fog, one more visible in foreground
Industry-Research

Strategies to help newsrooms build trust with audiences

Trust is a crucial driver of consumer engagement, especially in news reporting. Ed Williams, the CEO, Edelman, UK, and Ireland, notes that trust closely correlates to our sense of happiness. “The amount of trust that people are able to place in the institutions that govern or inform their lives accords closely with their sense of happiness,” he elaborates. “So, in a broad, societal sense, it matters whether or not our media is trusted.”

Unfortunately, recent studies show trust in the news media continues to decline. Edelman’s Trust Barometer 2021 shows trust in all news sources is at a record low with social media (35%), owned media (41%), and traditional media (53%). Gallup research finds trust in the news media news at 36%, down four percentage points from 2020.

In a new report, The Reuters Institute’s lead researchers take a deeper dive into the questions of trust in the news media. Specifically, Reuters explores how the news media can build trust with its audience. The report showcases discussions with 54 individuals from a mix of small, local, and niche online publications to large, industry-leading brands in the US, UK, Brazil, and India.

news audience trust compass diagram

Concerns in the newsroom

The report details journalists’ frustration with their newsrooms’ inabilities to build trust with the public. Smaller media organizations also spoke about their concerns and their lack of control over the way audiences interacted with their brands.

They also view Facebook, Twitter, Google, WhatsApp, and YouTube negatively and believe these platforms cause increasing distrust in the news media.

Breadth and depth face fierce competition

Journalists believe the quality and depth of their reporting are the main reasons audiences trust their news organization. However, many news media companies look to social platforms for scale. Doing so often adds attention-grabbing headlines and a disconnect with the content. 

Rohan Venkat, Deputy Editor at Scroll (India) responds, ‘It’s something that we find quite hard, and we have to keep innovating in trying to convey that the format, the medium, is more complex than just what the headline contains.” Many journalists are less interested in chasing after reach and scale on platforms and want to build a strong relationship with their audience. 

Finding your audience

Maintaining a strong connection with loyal readers is a priority for most newsrooms. However, publishers often disregard harder-to-reach and wary audiences. It doesn’t help that there are few incentives to build trust with an uninterested – and sometimes antagonistic – audience.

Many journalists feel it may be easier for publishers to change the minds of readers resembling their audience. However, if those most critical of the news media and its journalists are left untouched, they will continue to spread distrust in media news.

The research participants identified strategies to help build trust with audiences. The strategies include:

  • Maintaining a focus on accuracy. Differentiating fact from opinion is critical in building and keeping audience trust. News publishers should use fact-checking as a key differentiator.  
  • Using editorial initiatives to cater to audiences who are underserved, overlooked, or criticized by the press.
  • Ensuring transparency about reporting practices, editorial stance, and journalists’ backgrounds. Disclosing the identities of those producing the news can also help.
  • Engaging in partnerships with other news or civic organizations. Offering practical advice to an audience centered around consumer products, recipes, and other information relevant to daily life.

Journalists and news publishers are finding ways to stand out and engage audiences. Creating, experimenting, and analyzing content in different formats, such as audio, visual, and text can offer insight into the impact on trust and distrust. Notably, the publishers need to incentivize the content most likely to build trust with audiences.

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Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Why prioritizing personalization can build trust between consumers and brands

The pandemic era has altered consumer behavior like never before. With lockdown restrictions mandating stay-at-home orders and closing physical stores, every company — big and small — had to rethink its customer engagement strategies. This digital transformation and the mobile shift were quicker than expected. But consumers’ expectations have also radically changed in that time frame.

In an instant, consumers wanted brands to offer an enhanced user experience, especially when it came to mobile usage and ecommerce. To meet this demand, they expect companies to know who they are, what they like, and everything in between, regardless of which channel they came from. This anticipation of a more value-added exchange will only continue to rise. It’s therefore paramount that brands are ready to deliver a more personalized experience — and that publishers are empowered to help them deliver.

Start with first-party data

With first-party data, a more personalized experience can become a reality. The average buyer is becoming increasingly aware of how companies collect and use their personal data. However, they’re also demanding the highest level of privacy and security. And this trust is crucial in maintaining customer loyalty and retention.

When deciding on which brand to choose, 55% of consumers say trustworthiness and transparency are the most critical factor. Finding the sweet spot between convenience and privacy is therefore important to nurturing that relationship for a long-term future. After all, 48% of consumers appreciate the convenience of personalization as long as their data isn’t compromised.

We know that third-party cookies and comprehensive third-party data collection will most likely become obsolete. As a result, the businesses that invest and implement first-party data strategies will stay ahead of the pack.

But this isn’t necessarily straightforward. The average person touches their smartphone 2,617 times a day. They switch between an average of three devices to finish a task. And, 86% of shoppers regularly hop between two channels.  However, with data silos and poor infrastructure, the necessary context to bridge these channels and build a more complete picture is missing.

Personalization for omnichannel experiences

Fuelled by the pandemic, omnichannel shopping grew by 50% in 2020. This means that consumers have become more savvy about where and how they shop online than ever before.

Nielsen also found that consumers use online channels to purchase goods, research and identify physical stores. When examining levels of engagement across channels, 56% of online shoppers put careful consideration into each purchase at the point of sale in September 2020, compared with 51% of brick-and-mortar shoppers. In addition, the average buyer is now more used to going between the physical and digital world.

Consumers now expect a seamless transition across every touchpoint they have with a company. Therefore, prioritising creation of an omnichannel experience will help increase overall ROI. This is especially true when behavioral data is used. Behavioural data provides a more personalized experience online and offline, as well as giving a boost to brand loyalty and engagement. By tracking online data and leveraging it across all channels, a better user experience is entirely possible.

Enter data management platforms

In an increasingly privacy-driven and restrictive data collection environment, the proper data infrastructure can supercharge a company’s first-party data, all while staying privacy compliant.

This is where marketing needs to get deeper into single properties. For example, richer, more granular profiles for audience targeting allows for better personalization. So often, when we do a data interview with customers at 1plusX, we realize that typically they only have robust, deterministic data or attributes that are targetable for a fraction of their use. A data infrastructure with intelligent AI and predictive capabilities can enable brands to enrich and enhance their first-party data.

By expanding their dataset, companies can better personalize services and experiences. They can offer better advertising. They can understand which user might want a subscription or be more inclined to add a product to the cart. This behavior then feeds back to brands to better understand their customers. These data insights will prove valuable to optimize and enhance their marketing efforts.

Prioritizing personalization for the future

When companies use a data management platform that puts the control of user data in their own hands, they empower the consumer. This helps build the trust and transparency needed to maintain loyalty and engagement.

As a result, companies that can bring a more personalized experience to their customers without compromising privacy will thrive. Those that don’t will inevitably fall behind.

Advertising | Perspectives | Supporter Spotlight

Trust, walled gardens and a shining new opportunity for publishers

The future of digital advertising might just revolve around the matter of trust. But before publishers take on that question, they should consider this one: Why is Big Tech working so hard to build trust in their respective walled gardens? 

Take Amazon (please!). They’re rumored to be creating a universal identifier restricted to their ecosystem. Google’s proposed FLoC targeting, presented as the evolution of 3rd party cookies, might be reimagined before it even launches over privacy concerns. But surely whatever takes its place will only serve to strengthen its monopolistic hold on advertising. Apple is pushing to present their core OS’s as privacy-focused —  all while maintaining their typical “advantageous” relationships with the app developers that build and support large parts of their ecosystem. All are effectively fortifying the garden walls while working to convince the public of their respective trustworthiness. 

This new-found obsession should come as no surprise to publishers: Trust is a key ingredient in the secret sauce of ad revenue growth. 

Anecdotally, we know this to be true, and the numbers don’t lie. Privacy is the #1 driver of influence and engagement on social media platforms. Brands and agencies are cutting advertising budgets due to trust issues: Of those who decreased ad spend on one or more major ad platforms, 35% cited concerns over ethical handling of user data.   

A shining opportunity for publishers 

In a new trust-based world of content and advertising, publishers start with a few crucial advantages. 

First, publishers enjoy implicit goodwill from their audiences, which converts to business. More than two-thirds of consumers are more likely to engage with an ad in the context of a publisher they know and trust. Second, publishers have the advantage of knowing the types of content readers want to engage with. Most notably, publishers own the new “oil” of advertising: 1st party data. 

What is the opportunity for publishers? It’s a chance to differentiate themselves from Big Tech as the embodiment of stewardship with regards to consumer data. In short, publishers must buck the status quo and adopt a strategy where the audience is no longer for sale. Sell the site and sell the content. Maybe even leverage audiences on the backend to improve content experiences or implement new rate types. But no matter what, protect audience’s trust in publishers audiences by implementing a privacy-first approach.

Capitalize with balance and control

Successfully seizing this opportunity will take balance and control. 

Balance subscription and ad-supported strategy.

A paywall that is too high limits exposure and hamstrings new audience gains. However, too much advertising hurts a brand’s value and, most of all, the audience’s trust (that they won’t be constantly blasted with ads).

Control the quality of the user experience

Ad clutter diminishes trust by reneging on the promise of a good user experience. But control also means an increased cognizance of demand sources. Due to its inherent reliance on 3rd party cookies, programmatic demand should be a last resort. And these demand sources should provide the tools necessary to preserve brand-safe environments.

Trust is the answer (and the question)

How does the industry enable publishers to build and maintain trust? The simplest solution may be to step aside and let publishers create quality content. The role of industry tech platforms, in turn, is to support publishers without adding complexity. All the while, brand safety is table stakes: Any digital distributor should guarantee it (full stop). 

Of course, tech platforms must enable publishers to meet their business objectives. They should support multiple pricing models and offer broad customization options for demand sources. Again, this is because publishers know best in a new world of 1st party data and heightened demand for sophisticated content. (Read: the opposite of standard display).

The guiding principle? Trust. The differentiator from Big Tech? Trust. Our final thought? Trust us on this one.

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