Mark Zuckerberg’s recent decision to stop fact-checking across the Meta platforms rang alarm bells in many quarters. And rightly so.
But it’s also an opportunity for mainstream media, which is still checked by real humans, to position itself as a trusted source of information for consumers – and a brand-safe place for advertisers.
Now that misinformation can go unchallenged on Facebook and Instagram, they’re an environment where misinformation can thrive. Changes to community rules will doubtless allow the noise of unverified, toxic content to reach deafening volumes. Platform users who want to burrow further down the rabbit hole of conspiracy, half-truth and paranoia will be in their element, but most people will seek respite.
Trust goes hand in hand with brand safety
We know that brands risk their reputation by appearing in low-trust environments. That’s equally true whether the genre is news, lifestyle or leisure.
Note that trust in adverts on X (formerly Twitter) has plummeted to 4% since Elon Musk took over.
Against this backdrop, the editorial standards of mainstream media become even more valuable. Once upon a time – as recently as the 2010s – the public bought a paper, turned on the telly or tuned into the radio news to find out the headlines. They might even have looked at the same content on a website.
Media outlets had teams of editors, subeditors and librarians, checking whether that legislation was passed in 1996 or 1997. They could tell you if this type of butterfly is found in Britain and who scored how many runs in every test match ever. Perhaps more significantly, they knew politician X or Y was being duplicitous, if a situation was actually unique and when someone was just trying to sell something. Their bulls… meters were finely calibrated.
From radio to magazines, TV to newspapers, reporters have always had to second source information. They still do. And while the internet and endless cost-cutting measures have seen writing and production teams dwindle, they’re still working away, delivering accuracy, analysis and y’know, truth.
Yet news consumption has changed. Now the headlines are on a billboard, updates arrive via TikTok and then you switch over to YouTube – for the Gen Zers anyway. The headlines come to you as part of your everyday social media trawl. You know what’s happened and the content is engaging, but is it credible?
Time for media to fill the truth vacuum
The appetite for truth is out there. Subscription platforms are proliferating, with Stuff and NZME (among many others) happily paywalling exclusive content. Meanwhile, Substack and other paid-for services deliver reliable, highly specialised, expert information to niche audiences.
The 2025 Sprout Social Index reports 93% of consumers expect brands to combat misinformation. Let’s not forget that news outlets are brands too.
It’s long past time for mainstream media to rise to the occasion, and advertisers to seek brand safety in the reliable arms of real human fact checkers. This erosion of trust is nothing new, but the public are paying attention right now.
More than any other industry, we ought to realise the significance of that, and make the most of this moment.