The contest between giving audiences what they like and what they need has been waged for as long as we’ve had mass-circulation newspapers. Research published last week suggests it’s time to put our money on the latter.
The latest global Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute at Oxford University not only surveyed where people get their news and how much they trust it but also what they expect it to provide.
Too much of our current news output is driven by emotional triggers – prompts that induce people to read, listen or watch almost in spite of themselves. Death, crime, and misfortune add little to our ability to function in society, but they are surefire ways to get our attention.
Or they were in the past.
It is clear from the Reuters report that in an information saturated digital environment, too much competition for attention means button-pushing will not drawn people to news outlets any longer. Internationally, only about a fifth of the online community identify news outlets as their sources of news. More are turning to short videos for ‘news’ and much of that isn’t being produced by news outlets but by online commentators and a new breed called ‘creators’. And, apart from that, interest in news generally is still on a downward trend.
However, the Digital News Report 2024 also points to what may be the salvation for news media if they have the sense to embrace it and to find new ways to reach their audiences.
The institute used a model of audience research, originally employed by the BBC, that measures needs rather than likes. It surveyed users on eight indicators under four headings of knowledge, understanding, feeling, and doing:
- Update
- Education
- Perspective
- Assistance
- Engagement
- Inspiration
- Connection
- Diversion
Unsurprisingly, the greatest need from news media was to update (72 per cent) but, significantly, it was closely followed by the need for news to educate (67 per cent) and to give perspective (62 per cent). Around 60 per cent also wanted news media to help them and keep them engaged with issues, two factors that were closely related. Around half needed the news for inspiration or connection. Less than half need the news for diversion.
The update role will continue to be core business for news media but cannot be relied upon to bring audiences to homepages. Much of this updating is spread through social media. It is in the more demanding functions that news media may secure their future.
But how well do they meet needs now?
News was perceived as satisfying the need for diversion, but on every other indicator there was a gap between need and performance.
The researchers used a formula to determine the importance of each of the gaps. The most significant gap was in giving perspective to topical issues This was followed by a failure to meet the need to provide news that makes people feel better about the world (a gap that is also a factor in news avoidance). There were also significant shortfalls in meeting the need to educate and to update, with lower gaps in other areas.
A graph in the report sets out gap analysis.
Reuters Institute: Digital News Report 2024
Commenting on the findings, the researchers said:
News organisations may draw different conclusions from these data, depending on their own mission and target audience, but taken as a whole, it is clear news consumers would prefer to dial down the constant updating of news, while dialling up context and wider perspectives that help people better understand the world around them. Most people don’t want the news to be made more entertaining, but they do want more stories that provide more personal utility, help them connect with others, and give people a sense of hope.
This should not come as a surprise.
The year I was born (1947), the U.S. Commission on Freedom of the Press (the Hutchins Commission) presented its report and set out the five principal requirements that society entrusted the news media to provide. They were:
- A truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning.
- A forum for the exchange of comment and criticism.
- The projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society.
- The presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society.
- Full access to the day’s intelligence.
Aren’t those requirements reflected in the user needs set out in this year’s Reuter’s Report?
Put more simply, are they not embodied in the Five W’s drilled into young journalists on Day One and, in particular, the final requirement for a good news story: Who, What, When, Where, Why? Isn’t the point drilled home when we add the ill-fitting but vital annex “and How”?
A number of news organisations – notably the BBC and the New York Times – have been early adopters of the Needs Model that has been further developed by a Netherlands-based research company Smartocto.
It comes as no surprise that organisations like the New York Times Company embrace a needs-based approach to news. Nor does in surprise me that in most countries there is a gap between expectation and performance, not that the most significant shortfall lies in providing perspective or context to stories.
New Zealand is not part of the Reuters Institute’s global study, although the JMAD trust survey is an offshoot. If the funding could be found, the JMAD Centre at AUT would be well placed to carry out an addition to the 47 markets currently surveyed.
The full Reuters report provides excellent benchmarks against which to judge the performance of our news media. A needs-based analysis in this country would, I am certain, find the same gaps between expectation and performance as are present elsewhere.
However, let’s not dwell on the negatives. This part of the Digital News Report points to real opportunities for the future of journalism in New Zealand and elsewhere.
Digital platforms, with the ever-expanding benefits of artificial intelligence, deliver information by the bucketload. Communications staff, also aided by AI, target users with messages that benefit their employers. Social media allows individuals to seek and redistribute whatever supports their (increasingly polarised or distorted) view of anything and everything. And bad actors can take advantage of all of the above to spread disinformation. We face more rabbit holes than you would find in the 19th century South Island rabbit plague.
News media can provide a beacon of hope in this turmoil if they are willing and able to focus on the public’s needs, and deliver on them.
Our media already deliver some of the time, but not all of the time. And not always where and when it is most needed.
They can shine in times of adversity. For proof of that, we only need to look at The Press after the Christchurch earthquake or Hawkes Bay Today and Radio NZ after Cyclone Gabrielle. There is residual public goodwill from such efforts, but it fades over time and when the blame for unwelcome news is sheeted home to the messenger.
Humans have well-honed survival instincts. They become more apparent when that survival is directly challenged, but are always switched on. Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape has a chequered reputation but few doubt that our basic instincts were hard-wired early in our evolutionary journey. The needs that have been identified in the news model are ultimately traceable to more primal necessities.
If news media consistently follow a needs-based model – and carry their audiences with a public interest approach to journalism – they will set themselves apart from other forms of information that are ultimately driven by self-interest. Such self interest may contribute only marginally to a common good or, worse, be contrary to it.
Journalism is the only form of communication that meets the criteria set by the Hutchins Commission. The commission saw it providing the public with a sense of agency because knowledge, context, and connection are empowering. The Reuters Report sends a strong signal that this is the direction our news media needs to head.
The full report is a treasure house of information at both global and country level. It would be invaluable for New Zealand to become the 48th country to be included in the full survey. You can read the report here.