The following review was published by Newsroom on 5 February 2026
How to Rebuild Trust in Journalism by Tim Watkin (BWB Texts $20)
Reviewed by Gavin Ellis
The relationship between news media and the public is like a marriage. It is conceived in heaven but there is an ever-present danger that it will be perceived as the Eighth Circle of Dante’s Inferno. That is where we find panderers and seducers, hypocrites, sowers of discord, and falsifiers.
Like a good marriage, journalism’s bond with the community is based on trust. Trust is a small word that belies its power and obligation. Behind it lies a reliance that we behave openly, honestly and transparently toward each other. It is also an informal grant of power to act honourably on behalf of the other party.
A matrimonial thread runs throughout Tim Watkin’s book which addresses what may well be an existential issue facing news media both in New Zealand and the wider world. He uses marriage as a powerful analogy, one that will resonate with readers who enjoy successful or failed marriages…or both. No marriage will succeed without trust, and the absence of it will also destroy the public’s relationship with news media.
Tim Watkin is a seasoned journalist whose current role is as Executive Editor, Audio, at RNZ. He is a long-standing industry representative on the Media Council (Disclosure: He was a member of the editorial staff of the New Zealand Herald when I was the newspaper’s editor). The book is the result of a three-month research project – based in the Philosophy Department at the University of Glasgow – and interviews with some of the seminal thinkers on media trust in today’s world. The ‘thin end’ of his research is a series of bullet points on rebuilding trust that now circulates within RNZ. The ‘thick end’ is How to Rebuild Trust in Journalism.
The value of his book lies not in revelations about declining levels of trust. That has been well documented by organisations such as the Pew Center in the United States, and Oxford University’s Reuters Institute. The same month as Watkin’s book was published, a Gallup poll showed only 28 per cent of Americans have trust in media – a record low. Fewer than one in ten Republican supporters trust the news media.
In New Zealand, that decline has been measured annually by AUT’s Centre for Journalism, Media & Democracy, and the Acumen Edelman Trust Barometer. For the record, both JM&D and the Trust Barometer this year found about a third of New Zealanders express trust in the media. Watkin references these studies as he builds a rather bleak picture of the ‘marriage’.
However, like any good marriage counsellor, he delves deeply into cause and effect. Imagine the parties to the strained relationship sitting before him, hands clasped in their laps and determined to see themselves as faultless. What he tells them is, to the disinterested observer, blindingly obvious. Unfortunately, as any good marriage guidance counsellor will tell you, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
The value of Watkin’s book is that he confronts New Zealand news media (and those elsewhere) with their faults and a clear message that, if they don’t change their ways, the marriage will be over. Neither partner is faultless, but the media side of the marriage is left in no doubt that the burden of guilt sits squarely on its shoulders. And the restoration of the relationship lies there, too.
The public’s trust in media largely relies upon getting accurate, unbiassed and even-handed news. As Watkin says: “It’s hardly rocket science – every journalist knows that their first and most important job is to get it right. What the public is saying loud and clear is that we’re not doing these basics well enough.”
He is clearly frustrated at the failure of media to repair their houses. I share that frustration and voiced it in a column at the beginning of November that commented on yet another survey. It related to a study for the Broadcasting Standards Authority. The column was headed ‘Solutions to declining trust are staring news media in the face’ (Link, if required: https://knightlyviews.com/solutions-to-declining-trust-are-staring-news-media-in-the-face/ ).
The BSA study was not available when the book was written but it represents a form of validation of what Watkin says. The report highlighted five factors that contribute to loss of trust: Misleading/sensationalist headlines and clickbait; failure to acknowledge and correct errors; too much opinion and not enough factual reporting; too much ‘attack journalism’ (aggressive or bullying questioning); and advertisements presented as news.
Watkin highlights the same factors but adds some interesting ones of his own. One that particularly resonates is the issue of newsroom diversity: “…another consistent refrain on distrust is that newsrooms don’t look or sound like the public they service, and don’t see the world in the same way.” He makes the point that diversity is a significant counter to problems with accuracy and bias because like-minded people prioritise the same issues and have the same blind spots. It brought to mind a particular daily news conference I chaired at the New Zealand Herald. I listened to a stream of groupthink before slamming my fist on the table and saying: “[Expletive deleted] When will you people start thinking beyond the Ponsonby Ridge? How does it affect people in Otara, in West Auckland?”
I realised there is a danger that the more ‘professional’ the trade becomes, the less diverse a newsroom can become. Jeremy Rees (then at the Herald and now executive editor at RNZ) went to the US to look at diversity and, among a host of highly perceptive observations, he came back with the idea of the Rainbow Rolodex, which he picked up in a newsroom serving a diverse community in California. It did not take its name from the LGBTQIA+ movements but rather the broad spectrum that made up the community. It was a contact list for groups and individuals that had been overlooked by journalists who had the equivalent of a Ponsonby Ridge outlook. It changed the nature of that newsroom’s coverage. We tried to adopt a similar approach here. I’m not sure how successful we were. That’s for others to judge.
The book’s solution – like many of those within its pages – is disarmingly simple: “By hiring journalists from all walks of life, the news media have a better chance of reflecting, and earning the trust of, the entire community they serve.” He found that many news organisations he studied are, in fact, recruiting so their newsrooms look more like the populations they serve. However, he admits it is a work in progress and that progress can be slow. We need to remember that diversity is a wide field. Hiring with socio-economic background, life experience, ethnicity and culture in mind – while still seeking journalistic talent – can be daunting.
He points to an equally daunting issue identified by Washington Post senior journalist Mark Fisher who says he sees “a generational conflict that has emerged between younger folks who want to practice journalism that matches their personal views and old folks who want to maintain traditional standards of fairness and rigor”. They often see themselves as citizens first; ‘journalist’ is just one of their competing identities.
I don’t see this as a strictly generational issue. Yes, Millennials and Gen Zers have a heightened regard for their own voices but so, too, do journalists from the generations that precede them. They have been emboldened by the same digital environment that has moulded those under 35, and by their employers’ often desperate attempts to stay afloat by behaving more like social media than news media.
Comment is not simply a contextualising adjunct to the news. Comment is king. If I were dead, I would be joining C.P. Scott in spinning in the grave as his words “Comment is free, but facts are sacred” rang out in heavenly (an assumption on my part) chorus. Watkin quotes from a University of Oregon study that found, time and again, that focus groups want much clearer separation and straight-forward labelling to allow them to distinguish fact from opinion. Again, that’s not rocket science.
“This is an urgent need, and news media have been far too hesitant about addressing it,” Watkin writes. “Opinion-led news is cheaper, hot takes can spark strong audience reaction and this can be good for clicks and engagement time; ‘name’ broadcasters and commentators can build big followings. News organisations naturally want to profit from this. But this heavy use of opinions needs to be done in a much more explicit and transparent way. The walls between fact and opinion need to be rebuilt with much stronger mortar. Journalists owe their audiences more clarity on what is verified fact and what are reckons. The blurring of the two is a constant source of complaint but, with goodwill, is so easily fixed.”
He is so right. So, too, is his call to re-assert what he calls ‘journalism’s superpowers’: Objectivity, transparency, verification, and caring.
He makes the call in a chapter that is peppered with self-evident truths that have eluded too many people in the news industry. On objectivity, he draws the marriage analogy: “While objectivity may have fallen into disrepair and disfavour among some in the profession, most of the public see when it is lacking and view this as a form of infidelity. Objectivity is nothing less than a marriage vow the public expect journalists to keep.”
Objectivity, like Watkin’s other ‘superpowers’, looks a straight-forward concept. It is not. It is complex and nuanced, and Watkin explores some of these intricacies. He is aided by discussions he had during his research with American journalist and academic Tom Rosenstiel. Rosenstiel was the co-author (with Bill Kovach) of The Elements of Journalism: What newspeople should know and the public should expect. His thoughts run like a golden thread through Watkin’s book.
Rosenstiel told him how, as it evolved through the twentieth century, objectivity was a dictionary ideal rather than an everyday reality. Wartime censorship and McCarthyism worked against it in America (New Zealand had its own particular pressures to conform), and ‘just the facts’ often lacked intellectual discipline. Journalists began to add ‘context’, but worked within boundaries and labelled such work. When these constraints began to be abandoned, the audience started to see context as bias by stealth.
Then a second factor kicked in: The pace of news accelerated with the advent of digital platforms. Journalists felt they had to spin stories forward because the audience would already know what happened yesterday. Journalists would have to say what would happen next. The result, Rosenstiel told him, was more subjectivity, more often unconscious bias, and it was often wrong. People were annoyed.
Objectivity, as Watkin points out, has become a whipping boy. Many – perhaps most – of journalism’s failings have been laid at its door. The solution lies in a clearer understanding of what we mean by objectivity. Here is his attempt at giving it meaning and context:
“Journalism’s job…is to champion the free flow of knowledge and ideas, to create safe place where individuals and communities can come together to be informed and challenged, to listen and be heard. To be on the side of trusted information in the service of democracy and social cohesion. But that’s where the championing needs to stop. Only in the rarest of cases should it pick one idea over another – for example, democracy over dictatorship; or stop listening to difficult voices – for example, those advocating violence. The objective method is a robust way to ensure the many get heard, not just the few. Some of those voices will be more fragile and will need more care and compassion; some will be antagonistic and need a deep breath; some will be well-funded and powerful, and will need more challenge and accountability. But it means all those voices still get filtered through the gravel of fact and verification.”
The italics are mine: Fact and verification sit at the very centre of objectivity or, as Kovach and Rosenstiel put it in their book, journalism’s first obligation is to the truth. Watkin puts it rather well.
As the book’s title implies, there are many lessons here for journalists and for the people who employ them (many don’t trust the people for whom journalists work). It would be folly for the industry to try to pick and choose solutions. All of the principles articulated in the book need to be implemented if journalism is to restore the trust upon which its future relies. As Watkin says: “The time for tinkering is over; It’s time for a full court press”. He is obviously a basketball fan.
A full court press is a defensive tactic but the news media need to also go on the offensive to save themselves. And they have a compelling argument for why they should survive.
Tim Watkin calls it journalism’s exceptionalism, It is unlike all other freely available information. It is different because of the combined use of its ‘superpowers’ – objectivity, transparency, verification, and caring. He says the industry must now reclaim it by remembering and reimagining those ‘superpowers’.
Once they put their houses in order, they can shout that exceptionalism from the rooftops. To do so, they need to learn another lesson, because news media organisations are not particularly good at talking about themselves. As Watkin put it: There was an assumption that no-one cared how the sausages were made. That is no longer true. The public wants to know the ingredients of news and how it is produced before they bestow a Trusted Brand label.
Dr Gavin Ellis is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Auckland and a former newspaper editor. His media commentaries are on http://www.knightlyviews.com
