In the wake of news media digitisation, trust will prevail 

The annual Reuter’s Digital News Report, the 2021 edition of which was released a few weeks ago, discusses the accelerated digitisation of the media industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, the digitisation of the media has been in progress for many decades, but in the wake of the expected economic downturn caused by the pandemic, as well as the reduction of the physical distribution capabilities of media, print ad revenues more quickly dried up and media outlets have been more rapidly forced online.

The challenges for the industry due to the fast-tracking of digitisation are well documented in the Reuters’ report. They largely pertain to the limited success of publishers in, so far, designing profitable, digital models when moving from hard copy to online publications, without relying on online ads from which revenue ends up in the coffers of Facebook and Google. It is no doubt that the speed at which digitisation is being forced upon the industry, is occurring faster than publishers have solutions for.