If I said that news discovery is moving online, what would you think? “Where have you been for the last five years?”, perhaps.
But what if I said that people now trust online news more than they do that which they read in the newspapers? That’s a whole new ball game.
The annual Edelman Trust Barometer has revealed that Google is now the most trusted news source, overtaking traditional media for the first time. Trust in traditional media is now at an all-time low, with only 62% of people believing what they read, down 5% in only three years. At the same time, trust in search engines has risen to 64%, while social media, though still some way behind at 48%, has climbed 5% in only two years.
If you needed confirmation that the media landscape is changing, not only in the way people consume news but perhaps more importantly in what they value, this is it.
It is perhaps, therefore, no surprise that the likes of Twitter and Snapchat are making moves towards becoming publishers in their own right. Twitter has now rolled out its ‘While You Were Away’ feature for iOS users, displaying popular or relevant tweets that you missed since you last logged in. It’s a move clearly intended to capitalise on the network’s status at where the news breaks. While You Were Away is coming to Android and the Web soon.
Meanwhile, Snapchat is launching a new Discover feature early in February to publish media it creates itself as well as content from other media companies. Again, it is focused on making Snapchat a content publisher in its own right.
So what does all this mean for news discovery and publishing in the future?
It’s difficult to say at present. But one thing it does bear out is that if you want people to read about you, firing off a press release to the Daily Mail just isn’t going to work anymore. It’s becoming more and more imperative to have a fully integrated, digital communications strategy that makes relevant, interesting content available cross-platform.
By Paul Sutton, @thepaulsutton
