RELIGIOUS news isn’t exempt from the challenges set out in a latest report on the long run of stories, which warns of a steep decline in trust, the Bishop of Leeds, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, has said.
Bishop Baines is a member of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, which published the report last week. It draws on data from the Reuters Institute indicating that, between 2015 and 2024, the general proportion of individuals within the UK saying that they trust “most news more often than not” fell from 51 to 36 per cent. The proportion of individuals extremely or very all in favour of news fell from 70 to 38 per cent over the identical period.
‘I bring glad tidings on X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. . .’
The report concludes that the UK has a “vibrant press”. About 96 per cent of UK adults say that they watch, read, or hearken to news in some form, and a number of large outlets have a “reasonably viable financial future”, it says. In 2023, The Daily Telegraph and The Times accounted for 41 per cent of all UK news subscriptions.
But promoting revenues for local publishers fell by 70 per cent between 2010 and 2020, and it’s estimated that 4.1 million UK residents live in a “local-news desert”, defined as “a neighborhood authority area that has no dedicated local news outlet, whether print, online, radio or TV”.
The CEO of Enders Analysis, Douglas McCabe, warned the committee of the event of a “two-tier” media environment, where the decline of “popular” journalism meant that a growing proportion of society had limited engagement with professionally produced news — absorbing as a substitute “whatever they will pick up online”. Andrew Neil, the previous chairman of the board of The Spectator, noted the polarisation visible in US broadcasting, and warned that folks might shift to “things which can be more congenial to their way of taking a look at things”.
The report itself suggests that the rise of other providers akin to GB News should prompt public-service broadcasters to reflect on “how this pertains to the best way underserved communities are represented in their very own news coverage”.
It says that there’s a “realistic possibility of the media environment fracturing along social, geographic, economic and political lines inside the following five to 10 years”.
Last week, Bishop Baines said: “In terms of spiritual and media literacy, everyone must be healthily and enquiringly sceptical about what they read or hear and the way it’s framed — and by whom and for what purpose. The challenge to non secular media is that they should have a credibility and reach beyond their very own constituency in the event that they are to assist people understand the world they live in.
“However, the narrowing of focus brought on by the siloed access driven by social media is concerning. So is the wild behaviour of some Christians in social media — individuals who post as in the event that they are talking to some of individuals, whilst in doing so betraying the religion they claim to own.”
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