World News Day’s warning to the press: adapt together or fade out

The news business is fond of speaking about itself as if it were already in hospice care. World News Day has chosen to lean into that mood, but with a purpose that is less theatrical than it sounds: persuade the public that professional journalism still has value, and persuade newsrooms that survival will not be delivered by habit, branding or nostalgia.

More than 1,000 news providers around the world have signed up for the campaign, which is being marked on Monday. The New York Times, Reuters and the Kyiv Independent are among the outlets taking part, sharing editorials, adverts and cartoons in support of what organisers call trusted journalism. Their argument is simple enough. News organisations are not ornamental extras in a democracy; they are supposed to investigate events and explain them.

Branko Brkic, who co-organises World News Day and founded South Africa’s Daily Maverick, says the industry can no longer pretend the old model will return if everyone waits patiently. He argues that established outlets have to adjust to a changed media environment, and that rivals will need to cooperate if they want to remain relevant. His assessment is not exactly soothing: if they do nothing, they will be picked off one by one.

The timing is hardly accidental. A recent Reuters Institute report described public attitudes to news as marked by anxiety, disengagement and cynicism, while also noting some openness to new formats and sources and continued belief in what good journalism can offer. The same report said social media and video networks overtook news organisations’ own websites and apps as the main source of online news last year, even though those platforms are trusted less.

UK media regulator Ofcom drew a similar picture earlier this month. It said people now get news from a wider range of sources, with YouTube growing rapidly and 20% of people using AI tools to access news. More choice, as ever, has not produced more certainty. Ofcom said traditional providers are still regarded as more trustworthy, accurate and impartial than online platforms, which is a polite way of saying that the public has not become less suspicious by being given more options.

Brkic accepts that mainstream media has made mistakes. That admission is almost a genre of its own by now. But he still argues that professional journalists remain essential in an information-based society, because facts do not sort themselves out and truth does not emerge from whatever happens to be trending.

He says news organisations need to speak more directly to audiences and make the case for choosing truth and trust. The old days, he insists, are not coming back. What is needed now is a new equilibrium, built by outlets that stop behaving like isolated competitors and start acting a little more like shared civic infrastructure.

That may sound grand, but the underlying point is rather plain. If the public is left unsure what to believe, and if the institutions meant to explain events are weakened into solitary players, the result will not be a healthier information market. It will be a weaker one, with more noise and less accountability. For the industry, that is a warning. For everyone else, it is a question worth asking before the next crisis arrives: who exactly is supposed to do the explaining when the explainers have been allowed to disappear?

Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com