3 vital takeaways about the news media in the epoch of distrust

Cision surveyed 1,500 journalists for its latest State of the Media report. Here’s what came out of an industry struggling to survive a torrent of deliberate disinformation from outside sources.

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By a measure of their own assessment, “journalists perceive they are now struggling to maintain the public’s trust.” Moreover, “91 percent of journalists believe that the media is somewhat or much less trusted than they were three years ago.”

That’s according to the 2017 State of the Media Report by Cision, which surveyed some 1,500 journalists in the U.S. and Canada. This report is an annual event, and the vast majority of respondents were affiliated with traditional media outlets.

The Cision report says the findings align with the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer. That study found “the general population’s trust in all four key institutions—business, government, NGOs, and media—has declined broadly.”

In reviewing the State of the Media report, we noted several key factors for PR and corporate communications, including the following:

1. Getting it right matters more than getting it first.

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