For all of the challenges in a struggling economy and digital transformation, one would expect a core competence of the media to remain an ability to explain issues. It is, after all, what people are trained to do.
But a new study from the United Kingdom suggests an emerging failing of mainstream media is that the public doesn't feel issues are being explained properly and clearly. That's quite the indictment.
The report, published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, is written by British academics who researched the public's attitudes and practices with media. The rise of the Internet permits interaction and new involvement, which confers a greater power for the audience, but difficulties remain for mainstream (read: legacy) media in properly explaining issues.
Clearly, too, the decision-making of mainstream media left people bewildered.
"When we encountered distrust in the news—which we frequently did—it was because people felt that their expectations were not shared by news producers; that they were being told stories that were not properly explained; that their lives were being reported in ways that were not adequately researched; or that they
could find more useful, reliable or amusing information elsewhere." the report says.
"Public trust in the media was lost when they were imagined and approached in
ways that ignored or devalued their everyday experiences."
