
Can News Sources Ever Be Trusted Again?
Trust in news is at an all-time low. Fake news, Fox News, liberal media, the 24-hour news cycle, the National Enquirer, TMZ — who knows all the reasons for the trust in news falling, but one thing I do know, news needs some public relations help and fast.
The Center for Media Engagement has one answer going forward: A simple text box located near a story that explains the “journalistic process.” USA Today and the Tennessean helped researchers test the idea.
The explanation box “boosted trust in each story for 11 of 12 attributes,” reported Statista. The trust boxes especially “helped strengthen trust for the ‘telling the whole story’ and ‘transparency’ attributes when compared to participants who did not receive the box.”
This idea seems to work for newspapers and other news outlets, but what about sales efforts and marketing? Could this simple trust box help all of our communications? The next test should be a trust box at the end of marketing materials or even blogs.