Our mission is relevant and academic research proves it
The 2020 issue of the Digital News Report by Reuters Institute demonstrates the evolution of media consumption habits, and shows that in the US and Western Europe people are increasingly concerned with the accuracy of the information they receive, and they’re ready to pay for one or more subscriptions to digital news media.
The vision of the Verdict Platform is right at the intersection of the two main trends the research illustrates. Let us dive deeper into the nature of these trends and see if they are in any way related to each other.
Firstly, people across the countries that fell under the scope of the research (40 countries, 80,000 surveyed) simply do not trust in news anymore. In the age groups of 45–55 and 55+ only 40% and 41% trust the news, and the numbers are only lower for the population of 18–24 — only 33%.
Certainly, during times of turmoil and uncertainty, such as the COVID pandemic, which coincided with the time the survey took place, people may be more alert and prone to critical thinking and doubt, but the trend has been downward for a while, which some previously made surveys illustrate, and trust has been on decline for the most part of the 21st century more than in one country. If we’re to discuss some of the worst case scenarios, like the Russian Federation, hardly any proof is even required — it’s a foregone conclusion that the news there are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Keeping in mind the dropping level of trust let’s examine these numbers:
People who are arguably the most conscientious and demanding information consumers, the younger generations of 18–34 would prefer their point of view openly challenged or shared, rather than get news with no point of view. Where is this coming from? Are people getting less interested in facts and unbiased coverage of social issues?
No, they are not. They simply do not believe that the mainstream, media with free access in their country are even able to provide truly unbiased news anymore. So instead they’d prefer those who have hidden motives to stand by one or another point of view to come clean about it in the first place, before stating the facts the way they see it. If conflicting points of view exist, if opinions are divided on a social issue, it’s extremely difficult to make it seem otherwise in 2020 anyways.
Secondly, recently more and more people choose to pay for their news online.
It’s important to note that the “why” and “how” people subscribe to online news media is a very multi-layered issue, and we do not necessarily think that this trend is sort of a direct reaction to the first one (growing lack of trust in news). It’s far more complex than people believing that the truth is hiding behind paywalls, but the trends are not unrelated either.
What we believe is really important, lies at the surface of the survey’s results — over 50% of paid news subscribers cite “Better quality than in free sources” as the main reason for subscribing to an online news brand. On top of that, 52% in the US and 39% of respondents in the UK said that they “Wanted to fund good journalism”.
Where does our vision come into play here? We at Verdict believe that it’s important for people to make educated decisions when defining and discovering the above mentioned “good journalism” of “better quality than in free sources”, because right now, with all respect, many people do not make educated decisions and remain largely under control of their habits, biased opinion of their peers, and tunnel vision in terms of what kind of media outlets even exist in the first place.
To this date, there is no transparent, reliable and immutable platform that would keep a track record of how well the news media actually work. Certainly, all media have a reputation, but it’s not an accurate and quantifiable notion without a technological solution to back it, and consumers have to rely largely on their feelings and own past experience, which, important as they are, gut feelings do not hold up against modern analytical tools.
Our mission is to provide these tools, worthy of a modern competitive market that the media industry is quickly evolving into for all the right reasons — to fight corruption, to better inform and serve the public. Both reputable publishers and challenger media outlets stand to gain a lot from an objective evaluation of their work done by the public in its own interest, and this is exactly what we strive to facilitate with the Verdict platform.
