A claim – independent readers are independently-minded global citizens.
They are not defined by traditional demographics or profiles, but by their attitudes. In today’s increasingly fragmented world, communities value real facts and frank opinions delivered first-hand from a non-biased news brand that they can trust. Armed with information and inspiration, independent readers are empowered and quipped to take a stand for the things they believe in.
I am sure that most of us would like to consider ourselves as “independent readers”. The problems arise because not everyone out there is an independent reader.
So where do we go from there?
Perhaps we could start with a controversial statement: most of us don’t read at all, so how could we be, or become, independent readers? For example, the 2026 NAPLAN national results showed that about one-third of students failed to meet literacy and numeracy expectations. So, we are getting worse! If we can’t read effectively, how are we going to understand? If we can’t understand, how can we take a stand for things we believe in? No wonder the “powerful” are dictating terms.
Most discussions about belief and trust take us to discussions about the media. Ultimately the media provide us with the basic information we need to form our beliefs and establish our trust.
Until very recently, mid-20th century say, the news media was among the most trusted institutions in the country. Whether or not this trust was justified is another question. But today it sits near the bottom of the list, although public broadcasters and local papers retain higher confidence than commercial networks.
While not commonly recognised, this decline in trust has been several decades in the making. Accepting that we must therefore be cautious about oversimplifying the reasons for this, it would seem that there are three big trends, each of which interacts with the others:
- Acceleration of political polarisation;
- Proliferation of new media platforms;
- Economic disruption of the news industry.
Political polarisation:
Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s, the Democrats in the US increasingly aligned around a liberal/progressive agenda and the Republicans aligned along a conservative one. At the same time, both voters and elected officials started to express more hostility towards the out-group. Today it is generally true that Democrats are much more likely to trust the media than the Republicans (58% and 11% respectively). This divide is, in part, generated by the fact that journalism has become a more highly educated profession and, consequently, tends to identify as Democratic rather than conservative Republican.
New media platforms:
It would seem that more media choices hasn’t meant more trust. For example, a growing number of new entrants to the field have provided friendly venues for amplifying partisan attacks on the media.
In the mid-20th century time of high trust in the media, choices were very limited. At best people would have received their news from one of three TV networks, the radio, or their local newspaper that carried a mixture of local and, by today’s standards, very limited international news. By the 1990s there was the talkback radio shows that were almost always very aggressively conservative in outlook. We also saw the startup of the 24-hour news cycle. The 21st century brought the bumper crop of internet-born news companies, most of whom established their brand by attacking the credibility of offline media. This further helped funnel many people into political silos by allowing them to follow news that reinforced their views while marginalising other sources of news. However, it would be fair to say that it is still far too early to evaluate the impact of this explosion of news media options.
Economic disruption:
Media companies are like every other company – they need revenue. For the media, this principally means advertising money. With the advent of large number of internet companies, the traditional media has seen a dramatic reduction in advertising revenue. The response to this has been to cut costs by laying off reporters and editors and hollowing out newsrooms around the country. Naturally, the audience for the news became sceptical of the quality of what has been left.
So what will be the impact of AI?
The release of ChatGPT in late 2022 has brought the power of AI firmly into public consciousness and everyday use. While it is obviously too early to properly interpret the ultimate impact of AI, some trends are emerging.
One is the AI trust paradox. Ironically, about 70% of people accept its use, but about 60% do not trust it.
Another paradox, about 70% say they can use AI effectively, but 60% have no training. There is strong support for AI regulation – 70% believe it is necessary. People expect industry, national, and international regulation. Apparently almost 90% want laws and fact-checking to combat misinformation.
It would seem that frustration or distrust in conventional media is generating a sort of “deferred trust” towards AI, which can be viewed as “neutral”.
Where does all this leave us? We are losing our trust in the media, our politicians, and our businesses, but we don’t yet trust AI. No wonder we have a fractured world view. No wonder many of us latch on to people who proclaim simple solutions for these issues!
There is a view that says mistrust might mean that journalists are actually doing their jobs, particularly when they deliver unwelcome news about a politician or public figure. But when news institutions falter and fail, mistrust should be interpreted as an important signal, not dismissed simply as misdirected partisan noise. It’s important to remember that mistrust itself doesn’t automatically lead to worrisome social effects. At the end of the day, public trust is one very important barometer of a healthy press. But it need not be the only one.