You might remember that I like to cover the report every year. It’s a labour of love; a homage to the trade in which I cut my teeth as a writer. Plus, the report’s infinitely fascinating.

What is the Reuters Digital News Report?

To recap, the report studies our consumption of news, favourite channels and general attitudes towards the industry. This year’s study is the largest yet, examining 46 markets across six continents. Released every June, this one comes at a pivotal moment: the UK is on the brink of getting “back to normal”, whatever that may be.

It will be intriguing to see how next year’s results fare, bearing in mind the data were collected between January and February 2021, when:

• Protesters stormed The Capitol
• The UK recorded its highest COVID-19 death count
• Anti-lockdown riots rocked London
• A year had passed since both Brexit and “Megxit”.

While perhaps not all life-or-death issues, they do affect the attitudes in the report. Namely, I’ve picked out four themes, with a focus on the UK and the US for brevity:

1. Fairness and representation
2. Trust and avoidance
3. Impartiality and balance
4. The future of journalism.

No time to read the full 164 pages? Dive right in here.

Fairness and representation

A stand-out finding in this year’s report was the unfair representation of women, in particular, younger generations. Of course, this was compounded with ethnic minorities, bringing issues like the media’s treatment of the Duchess of Sussex to the fore.

Likewise, George Floyd’s murder continues to shape our views towards news reporting. However, those with right-wing views feel most unfairly represented by news outlets, with the US topping the charts at negative 59 points.

These viewpoints have a significant impact on how we consume news, too. Generation Zs, for example, are twice as likely to use social media than they are traditional channels. Meanwhile, many right-wing US citizens have “lost all interest” in the news following Joe Biden’s election.

Trust and avoidance

As ever, trust is an overarching theme in the Reuters report, and it’s no surprise to see its correlation with media representation.

In a heartening upward trend, trust in the news is up by six percentage points across all markets. Now at 44 per cent worldwide, this has been pinned on reliable reporting of the pandemic.

But the pandemic has also spurred a general news boycott among many markets. For example:

I must admit that first of all I started watching it, really engrossed in it, and then as time went on, I found it quite depressing so I just cut it off.

– 30-year-old female in UK focus group.

Remind you of anything? In 2019, an incredible 71 per cent of us said Brexit made us turn off.

“The Trump bump”

The world might be a less outrageous place without Trump on Twitter, but it appears he made more of an impact than previously thought. Paid news subscriptions in the US shot up in 2017, but networks such as Fox News have reported a huge fall in viewers post-Trump. Love him or hate him, the man commands attention.

Impartiality and balance

But while many of us would feel we’d trust the news more if we were accurately portrayed, we still want impartiality.

Or do we?

The report cites a surge of unregulated, partisan outlets, such as GB News. While this may have been founded to combat “liberal and metropolitan bias” of better-known outlets, it’s perhaps having the opposite effect – shifting the focus towards true impartiality.

Almost three-quarters of us believe news publishers should be impartial in their reporting.

But there are some subjects where impartiality has no place.

One UK focus group respondent said it was “OK for journalists to express opinions on things like domestic abuse”, but that they should remain impartial with politics. In another focus group, respondents were pushed for their thoughts on:

• Racists
• Anti-vaxxers
• Climate-change deniers.

Younger respondents recognised the dangers of giving these views equal airtime.

“False equivalence”

This debate gives rise to the term “false equivalence”:

Creating a false impression of an alternative view when one viewpoint is supported by scientific evidence, whereas the opposing argument has none.

In fact, 83 per cent of us believe those with weaker arguments should be given an equal platform (save for the extreme topics above). Think the Queen is a lizard? Come on down.

The future of journalism

Of course, it would be remiss of me to skim over technology as we ponder the future of journalism. It’s a mixed bag for both journalists and tech manufacturers, for example:

• Growth in podcasts has slowed due to less commuting
• Television as a “main source of news” is up by 7 per cent in the UK
• Influencers and alternative sources such as TikTok and Snapchat are “eclipsing journalists”
• Multiple user subscriptions are becoming more common, such as newsletters and YouTube channels.

Faced with the continual decline of print (the Metro and Standard fell by 40 per cent thanks to transmission fears), today’s journalists must embrace a tech-forward approach.

The benefits are twofold: they’re capitalising on all generations experimenting with new channels, while they’re reaching a new cohort of subscribers: Generation Zs. The report notes that new platforms like TikTok are lost on long-established brands, putting the onus on individuals to ‘sell’ the publication.

We’ve already seen this working on Twitter, with 31 per cent of us getting our news from single journalist accounts rather than brand profiles. However, forays into ‘new’ mediums are paying off: the report cites the BBC’s Sophia Smith Galer’s ‘Suez Canal sea shanty’ going viral on TikTok.

The question for journalists

Today, there’s more emphasis on personal brand, particularly as we seek to reach new audiences. But there’s also more pressure to go cross-channel: video podcasts have taken off in a world dominated by Zoom, for example.

When we combine this with trustworthy, well-researched content, we see it paying off for a struggling industry. Today, 21 per cent of US citizens pay for some kind of news. (It’s rather a sadder story in the UK at 8 per cent, but give it time.)

The report ends with a question for journalists: what choice will they make?

1. Continue to develop their existing audience, potentially taking a more partisan view but building trust in doing so.
2. Try to bridge the gaps between difference of opinion with services that work for the largest number of people.

My two cents

The abovementioned question poses a dilemma for traditional publishers. Do they risk tarnishing their reputation by peddling ‘weaker’ or extreme views? Or do they remain staunchly committed to their audience and their beliefs, à-la Fox News?

This lowly writer’s opinion is that the second option is a lovely idea. In principle. In reality, the world is always going to be divided, and we should embrace these differences, sparking debate rather than trying to convince someone with diametrically opposing views.

Like many survey respondents, I don’t believe this is synonymous with giving hate preachers a platform. Thank goodness the likes of Twitter are finally waking up to this – banning Trump signalled a landmark moment for the site.

We will always want facts, but we will always have our own confirmation biases. The role of journalists, as ever, is not to obscure the ugly parts. We should talk about George Floyd. We should talk about Meghan.

The key is to clarify the difference between fact and opinion.

Read the Reuters Digital News Report 2021 in full here.

Main image: Mark Jones on Flickr.

The post Principled, Paid and Partisan: The 2021 Reuters Digital News Report appeared first on Katie Lingo.

What has this got to do with pandering to the algorithm? Everything. My wise old matriarch delights in sharing her daily curated newsfeed content, dogged with negative stories challenging the efficacy of the vaccine.

Like clockwork, one of us disputes the claim while another says we need to be open-minded. Matriarch fights back. Chaos ensues.

Nature or nurture?

As human beings, we have always been hard-wired to form social groups. Part of it is a survival instinct. As Psychology Today puts it, “In a hunter-gatherer group, being ostracised or banished could have been a death sentence.”

Another reason is social influence. We go to school with children of the same age; we attend church with those of the same faith. We’re born without prejudice but we’re put into groups from birth.

Sure enough, having a common interest, be that religion, sport or superheroes, is relatively harmless.

But what happens when the algorithms intervene? What if our shared beliefs are not based on the collective fandom of one particular entity, but rather, the calculated outcomes of an entirely artificial equation?

Why we rely on algorithms

The term ‘algorithm’ dates back to the ninth Century – long before we needed Google for everything. It comes from Muhammad ibn Mūsā al’Khwārizmī, a mathematician whose Latin name was Algoritmi, or the “decimal number system”.

As we navigate through history, we see algorithms hard at work in:

• Ancient Greece, to power modern mechanics
• The 19^th Century Analytical Engine, with algorithmic input from Ada Lovelace
• The Second World War, when Alan Turing played his part in cracking the Enigma Code, and paving the way for ‘general purpose’ computers.

Today, we use them to answer questions, drive from A to B, and segment our customers. They’re also extremely cost-effective for harnessing astronomical amounts of data. This has its benefits: personalisation and time saving, for example.

It also has potential for harm. New Scientist states that “cash-strapped authorities are turning to algorithms they don’t fully understand in an effort to cut costs”. This has resulted in one police force investigating half as many reported assaults, based on a computer’s decision.

The filter bubble

Beyond their uses for enterprise, algorithms may also influence how we think. Following Mark Zuckerberg’s historic hearing, Facebook made changes in 2018 that would prioritise “posts that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people”.

At the time, businesses groaned as they saw their page reach diminishing, but the long-term effects were far more pernicious.

“Intellectual isolation”

Let’s say you’re not really sure of your stance on something. You log in to Facebook to see what the world has to say. The algorithm has prioritised these ‘conversations’ and as such, you’re confronted with hundreds of posts from one hard view. Before long, you’re in the rabbit hole, seeking out more information that aligns with these views.

In the background, apps and cookies are monitoring this activity to get a better impression of you. Let’s take Apple News – a news aggregator platform which “personalises content to your interests”. The more of this content you view, the more of it you’re fed. Before long, you’ve succumbed to the filter bubble.

A filter bubble is the intellectual isolation that can occur when websites make use of algorithms to selectively assume the information a user would want to see, and then give information to the user according to this assumption.

-Eli Pariser: The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You.

The problem with this bubble is that it limits us from exploring alternative views, in turn leading to confirmation bias. Like our hard-wired desires to conform, we seek out information that supports our views, and we dismiss the alternatives.

In practice, this means a lot of family arguments, or dramatic Whatsapp group exits. Mic drop.

The deleterious effects of algorithms

So, you like dogs; I like cats. So what? If the effects of these filter bubbles were limited to claims of hoax moon landings, we could breathe easy.

For starters, we have the ongoing issue of fake news. Again, not a problem if we’re bickering over Kimye divorcing, but quite significant when we consider that lives are at stake.

The 2020 Reuters Digital News Report revealed that 37 per cent of us feel we have been given “misleading information” about the coronavirus:

Source: The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020

That’s on social media alone. More than a quarter of us blame video sites, while almost a fifth blame search engines…and at 32 per cent? Of course. Whatsapp.

But it goes beyond COVID. I’m not even getting into Brexit or the 2016 election results because there aren’t enough hours in the day. Just look at the dangers of algorithms in 2020/1:

Patients are refusing ‘non-English’ vaccine

At the turn of the year, Dr Paul Williams, the Labour MP for Stockton South, and former GP, tweeted:

Some local patients have turned down an offer this weekend of getting a Covid vaccine when they found out it was the Pfizer one. “I’ll wait for the English one”.

People at risk of death in the depths of a pandemic.

A lesson that Nationalism has consequences.

— Dr Paul Williams (@PaulWilliamsLAB) January 7, 2021

This is quite an eye-opening insight into polarised Britain. We might even call it groupthink: the group are united in their nationalism to the point that they will make poor decisions, like turning down a ‘non-English’ vaccine.

Think algorithms don’t play a part? Think again. In August 2020, Professor J. Paul Goode discussed the links between algorithms, artificial intelligence and nationalism. He says:

“Disruptive technologies can empower the powerless, influence the movements of populations and ideas across borders, change how the nation is imagined in daily life, and facilitate revolution.”

Think of that in the context of the Capitol riots.

The 2020 A-level fiasco

In one of just many examples of AI bias, the 2020 A-level fiasco led to almost 40 per cent of students receiving grades lower than expected.  Worse still, the UK government capped growth rates for universities. Even if universities had attempted to be lenient, they were not allowed to grow by more than 5 per cent.

In lieu of real exams, an algorithm calculated students’ grades based on three things:

1. Historical grade distribution of schools during the years 2017-2019
2. The individual student’s rank, based on teacher evaluations
3. The student’s previous results for that particular subject.

Point one is particularly noteworthy. It essentially penalises students based on the performance of others. Further analysis concluded that those in smaller schools were more likely to benefit.

Then there was the appeals process, which came with a fee – once again, discriminating students from certain backgrounds. Thankfully, the students’ results have since been retracted and will be determined by teacher feedback, or, you know, an actual human being.

Skills and employment bias

Algorithms are powered by data – or human input. As humans we may have inherent biases towards our own race or sex, which may affect outcomes on anything from crime prediction to job applications.

One of the issues is the sheer scale of the data. Stas Sajin argues that it is not enough to simply “remove race” from job applications as a variable. There are so many other indicators of our personal attributes. As he notes, Amazon’s hiring algorithm inadvertently discriminated against women – there was no mention of their sex, but there were references to “Women’s Chess Club Captain” and such.

If we extrapolate this, algorithms could be penalising applicants based on their socioeconomic background, race, sex, faith – it calls for human intervention.

The power of Twitter

With all this evidence, we could be forgiven for claiming the algorithms have brainwashed us. Facebook has 1.82 billion users per day – all that data is bound to influence our thinking.

But we have to take responsibility for our actions. Twitter, for example, offers a mixture of “algorithmic and real-time content”. Therefore, we might see Trump inciting violence because we follow him, or because we see it in the trending section.

If political unrest wasn’t enough, we also have cancel culture. Earlier this week, Rowan Atkinson was featured in a controversial article discussing online mobs, and said it was important that we consider a wide spectrum of opinion.

The article also cites the case of JK Rowling, a former national treasure who was ‘cancelled’ after a series of tweets discussing trans people. Would 81,000 people have waded into that conversation had it not been on Twitter? Or did those who had no opinion either way feel compelled to form one…because it was trending?

We must take responsibility

Whatever your opinions on JK Rowling, Rowan Atkinson, Donald Trump – you cannot ignore the facts. On January 6, Trump tweeted: “Get smart Republicans. FIGHT!” Twenty-four hours later, five people were dead.

It’s up to us whose accounts we follow, whom we choose to retweet and how we interpret information that’s given to us. President of Reuters News Michael Friedenberg perhaps sums it up best:

Historically, the supply chain of content has always been about creation and distribution. Somewhere along the line it added verification. But the order should be creation – verification – distribution.

We play a part in disseminating the message now. We need to consider the consequences.

The good news

The good news is that the onus is not on us alone. Social networks are facing up to their responsibilities and tightening their grip on ‘fake news’ culture. World leaders are not exempt from this. Take this excerpt from the Reuters report:

“Facebook has stepped up funding for independent fact-checkers and a number of platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have taken down misinformation that breached guidelines, including a video from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.”

In the same vein, Trump has now been banned from most major social media platforms.

Similarly, in February 2019, Google published a white paper on how it plans to fight disinformation, including:

• Focusing on quality content
• Counteracting ‘malicious actors’ (those out to deceive)
• Giving users more context with knowledge panels
• Partnering with experts and championing quality journalism.

What, us? Bickering?

So, what can you do?

If you’re finding yourself locked in daily tussles, take it from someone with five siblings:

1. Ask if it’s worth your time

Is the vaccine an exercise in government control, or the first step to getting through this pandemic? Revised: can you change anything, either way? It’s best to focus your energy on things you control, like how you talk to others.

2. Curate your own feed

Seeing too much content from the same groups? Leave the group, change your cookie settings, untick the advertising tick boxes, unfollow the hashtags. If you want to broaden your horizons, follow both camps. Make your own conclusions.

3. Respect other people’s right to an opinion

Note that opinion is different from fact. If somebody is broadcasting an opinion as fact, it’s right to challenge them – particularly if it’s harmful. But if somebody is merely sharing an opinion, respect your rights to disagree, or even prompt healthy debate. You may have facts that they don’t, or vice versa.

4. Be careful what you share

It’s on you, dear reader. You have no idea how much influence that share button has. You can use fact-checking tools like Snopes to verify the claims. It’s quite eye-opening what you’ll find.

5. Question the algorithm

When the outcomes of an algorithm affect your life, by all means, challenge them. The A-level results are just one example, but AI may also hinder job interviews, loan applications and goodness knows what else. Remember that, even in 2021, we can fall back on human common sense.

Above all, remember:

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

– George Bernard Shaw

It’s OK to change your mind. It’s fine to disagree with others. What’s not fine is other people getting hurt, and the algorithm can only work based on what we tell it.

The post Why We Must Stop Pandering to the Algorithm appeared first on Katie Lingo.

Recap: what is the Reuters Digital News Report?

Led by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, this yearly report gathers global insights into news consumption. It approaches our attitudes to modern-day media, the channels we use, and how the industry can overcome ongoing challenges.

The report has been running since 2012, and I’ve been covering it since 2018. Common themes include waning trust in journalists and politicians, as well as paid versus free news. Funded by online media giants like the BBC and Google, it’s one of the biggest and most respected reports of its kind.

So, how does 2020’s measure up?

The Reuters Digital News Report 2020

This year took a different format. With Zoom calls so prolific nowadays, we had live input from Lauren Williams, editor-in-chief of Vox, and Michael Friedenberg, president of Reuters News. Both contributed to the question and answer section, while Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Institute, led the webinar.

Corona sparks uptake in news

More than 80,000 respondents from 40 global markets took part this year. However, it’s likely we’ll see the long-term impacts of coronavirus in 2021: many were surveyed in January and February, before the pandemic took hold.

Despite this, Nielsen noted an uptake in news from March onward, with the number of daily visitors to BBC news doubling after government shielding measures were announced. This underscores many issues in itself – namely, the role social media has to play. (In Q1, the average reach of social media news grew by five points.)

It would be remiss to overlook the ongoing social tensions in response to George Floyd. As we rounded off the webinar, Williams used her platform to address diversity and honesty in journalism.

Can we trust anybody anymore?

Like 2019 and 2018 before it, trust continues to be a key issue for consumers, who have all but lost their faith in the media:

• Overall trust in news is down to 38 per cent (-4 points)
• In the UK, 28 per cent of us trust the news (-12 points)
• Globally, Facebook is considered the biggest source of misinformation (29 per cent)
• Political polarisation, in particular over issues like George Floyd, the US elections and Brexit, is the main reason for diminishing trust
• 60 per cent of respondents worldwide prefer to read news that has no particular point of view

We return to coronavirus once again. Friedenberg says: “We will look back on this and say this topic has galvanised the conversation on platforms.” As a keen proponent of digital transformation, he adds that the “supply chain of content” has been transformed thanks to social media.

Historically, the supply chain of content has always been about creation and distribution. Somewhere along the line it added verification. But the order should be creation – verification – distribution.

Friedenberg also warns us that opinion often weaves its way into reporting, thereby muddying the truth. We only need to look at a certain president’s tweets to see that in action. It’s no wonder that domestic politicians are seen globally as “most responsible” for misleading information online.

How does this affect the business of news?

If we are so disillusioned with the news, why would we pay for it? Or are we, in fact, so hungry for true facts that we will surrender our cash for accurate reporting?

In a heartening trend for publishers, more of us are paying for news than ever before. Paid news is up by eight percentage points in Norway (to 42), four in the US (to 20), and three in the Netherlands (to 14). Meanwhile, the New York Times has seen a spike in subscriptions, while the Guardian has had more donations during the pandemic.

Sadly, this does cast a light on “information inequality”, whereby people with lower incomes rely on less reliable sources, like social media. This is notable in the US, where 24 per cent of respondents worried about misinformation. By contrast, only nine per cent of us worry in the UK – namely thanks to our free, high-quality publishers like BBC News.

Here’s a quote from one UK respondent that will have journalists biting their nails.

Paid news is too expensive – there’s nothing I couldn’t get for free on Apple News.

How can we convince readers to pay for content?

Once again, media literacy becomes an issue. So few of us are unaware of the dire straits the industry faces. Friedenberg says it is up to publishers to “better market the great work they’re doing”, while Williams warns that “quality news is expensive”. Both agree that we need to have more of a digital focus, looking not just at the content, but the channels and user experience.

It seems we consumers share this view. When asked why they pay for content, 58 per cent of UK and US respondents cited convenience – in particular, how news is packaged, and the digital experience. Furthermore:

• 65 per cent wanted distinctive, valuable content
• 39 per cent of UK and 52 per cent of US consumers wanted to support good journalism.

Others added that a valuable, flexible and ad-free experience would convince them to pay.

Diversifying content

As ever, channels were a controversial issue in this year’s report. While podcasts dominated the younger market last year, overall consumption has actually dropped in 2020. The reason? Working from home. Less commuting = less consumption.

The positive is that the few people who are still listening to podcasts are gaining a deeper understanding – a view shared by 50 per cent of us.

Newsletters

Other heartening news is the upward trend in newsletters. Senior research associate Nic Newman notes that these “once low-tech, unfashionable” communications are now imperative for building loyalty.

It’s a view shared by many journalists, including Anna Codrea-Rado, who described newsletters as “intimate” in a recent webinar. “The next step after convincing someone to give you their email address is to let them into your house.” Quite right!

An astonishing 60 per cent of us receive at least one daily general news email. It’s arguably more ethical than news aggregators, which may curate content based on algorithms and our general preferences. Could email be the least partisan form of news distribution?

An honest report

Partisanship continues to chip away at our trust in the media, and so Williams advises that we need to be more honest and diverse in the newsroom. “Impartiality is a myth. Everyone is bringing some part of themselves into the newsroom – it affects our decisions on everything, from headlines to positioning.

To have a global organisation reporting on the global news, we need to have a diverse newsroom.

Friedenberg adds that the world is “looking for semblance of answers” as we become more polarised. Traffic is up by 50 per cent in lockdown, and we need to build a foundation of trust through representative, fact-based journalism.

The future

Naturally, regaining the public trust comes with its own challenges. In the question and answer section, the hosts addressed the obstacles and opportunities of digital transformation.

“Our audience is infinity and time has gone to zero. We need to move towards quality and focus, which is difficult because we’re scaling at levels we’ve never dreamed of, or we need a vertical play to go deeper. We need to build a diversified audience and understand who they are,” says Friedenberg.

Williams adds that Vox’s audiences are very distinct depending on the channel – so it’s up to us as publishers to adapt and create content for each.

A new approach

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. As advertising (for better or worse) funds digital journalism, we need to take a more marketing-led approach. We have ample evidence that people will pay for content, particularly if it stops irrelevant ads.

We also have more digital means than ever to measure interaction. There are analytics, social media, revenue figures and of course, the Reuters Digital News Report. To stay sustainable in 2020 and beyond, we must leverage these means – all while focusing on the core values of facts and quality.

COVID may have thrown the world off-balance, but it’s also a serendipity. With more consumers turning to digital, now is our chance to demonstrate the true value of time-consuming, expensive, but ultimately invaluable journalism.

Are you up for the challenge?

You can view the full Reuters Digital News Report 2020 here.

The post The Reuters Digital News Report 2020 – Can We Trust Anyone? appeared first on Katie Lingo.