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

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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.