Trust Forum – The Power of Trust
Nihal Arthanayake (BBC), Karen Stephenson (Media Center), David Brain (Edelman)and David Schlesinger (Reuters) during the session “The Power of Trust Forum | How Trust and Empowerment Shape Our Global
Society.” Photo by Paul Hackett – Reuters.
In the WeMedia’s first session, Merrill Brown chatted with Nihal Arthanayake (BBC), David Brain (Edelman), David Schlesinger (Reuters) and Karen Stephenson (Media Center) about how the world can trust the media and the enormous amount of citizen reporters that now have voice on the Internet. Below are the main points:
-The medium isn’t the message, the message is the message
-TV is so popular worldwide because it brings you immediacy and relates you directly to the information. This is why blogs have proved so popular. They relate you directly to a person or group of people expressing their experiences and opinions.
– It’s hard to determine trust in bloggers at this point because the medium is so young; we’ll learn with time
– Citizen journalism has always existed; news organizations get down to the grassroots to find out what the everyday person is thinking. In doing this, there’s always the issue of credibility; making sure information given by citizens is credible, that photos aren’t doctored, etc.
– There is a digital divide. Among the connected, it exists between generations. Among the un-connected, what would they say, how would they change our opinions if we could hear them?
– Trust is a social phenomenon. We have to get back to the basics of bringing people together, need to create social relationships that create trust. Technology enables us to bring communities and individuals together.
– People are sophisticated enough to decode biased and unbiased news. Most don’t only read one perspective but many voices between media and the blogosphere to obtain a well-rounded, educated opinion (Karen – I watch John Stewart for some credible news and watches CNN for some humor) (audience comment; increased proliferation of media increases consumption, but not necessarily sophistication.
– Still need traditional editorial boards to point people to the important news they should know.
– Although news organizations are losing people’s trust, even among themselves, they want to get the story right. In doing this, they’ll maintain the public’s trust.
– Our conversations are too much US/European-centric – what happens in the rest of the world? There are places where there is no mainstream media. How does this affect those citizens? How can we include them?
– The media is becoming too commercialized; commercialization breaks down people’s trust in the media.
– What can media companies do to establish trust? Outreach, collaboration, communication and transparency above all.
– Speed and time are changing everything; the speed with which information is diffused and the limited amount of time we have to absorb a never-ending amount of sources.
TAG: wemedia
