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'Trust is a fig leaf for power' - now it's about making journalism relevant, says POLIS head

Posted: 30/10/08 By: Judith Townend
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Traditional journalism has never been trusted and that people focus on a lack of trust in online content is 'frustrating', Charlie Beckett, director of POLIS, has told Journalism.co.uk.

In a chapter in a new book on trust in media, Beckett argues that 'there was no Golden Age when journalists were seen as impartial conveyors of reality. Trust was always conditional.'

He told Journalism.co.uk that in the past, 'the best journalism didn't rely on an automatic idea of trust', adding that he is irritated by distinctions between media 'old and new'.

Those who say today's media should become more trustworthy are 'actually arguing for a media controlled by an intellectual elite, a priesthood of politicians, experts and journalists,' he writes in his chapter.

"I am not sure that was ever a healthy ambition but it is certainly not a sustainable position anymore."

"All the criticisms voiced above could, and have been, applied to mass media over the last 100 years. They are very similar to attacks made upon other new technological developments such as the arrival of radio or television when they threatened the status quo," he writes.

Using the word 'trust', said Beckett, disguises a notion of power: "Now it is possible to see the real nature of the term. The internet means that the journalists have lost their effective monopoly over news production," he writes in the book, which has been seen by Journalism.co.uk.

For Beckett, the question of 'relevance' is more important: modern day media consumers are looking for relevant content and media organisations must supply that.

"I think the whole trust word is a bit of a fig leaf, and especially online – it is certainly different in practice," Beckett said, adding that the 'amazing thing' about online is that people link and reference out 'because it's relevant'.

"You could say they trust it [online journalism], but I prefer the word relevant," he said. "That's much more sophisticated and exciting, in a way, than the old media journalism."

The answer, said Beckett, is to build on his theory of networked journalism, which he first developed in his book 'SuperMedia', where professional and amateur work alongside each other, in a move from 'branded institutions' to 'branded communities'.

Journalistic fear of new model is dangerous
Journalists are scared to break newspaper traditions, such as not referring to their competitors, but have 'good reasons' for this, he said, like the risk of job loss.

Nevertheless changes must be made, he said. The feedback of old was an 'incredibly crude way of sensing your audience', for example, and journalists must now go to the places where their audience is.

Process not a product
In the past journalists kept story development 'behind closed doors', but now they need to publish the process too, said Beckett.

"The difference now is that publishing is a process not a product," he said. Journalists should 'do their work in public', he added.

"Start your work, do stuff online, get feedback and you're building the story in public and it may change," he advised.

'Beyond Trust - Hype and Hope in the British Media' is edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble, and published on November 20 by Ethical Space: The International Journal of Communication Ethics, Arima Publishing. Its authors include Anthony Arblaster, Susanne Franks, Richard Peel, Dorothy Byrne and John Tulloch.

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