Reviewing the costs

“Reader trust” is a big buzzword in journalism right now. There are classes, conferences, and entire organizations devoted to cultivating and keeping it.

That makes sense since the American public’s faith in traditional news sources is eroding at a scarily fast rate. While 71 percent of Americans in a recent Pew Research Center study said they have some or a lot of trust in local media, that figure has dropped from 85 percent in 2019. Among adults under 30, trust in information from social media sites stands to soon surpass trust in information from national news outlets.