On paper, entering journalism right now looks irrational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An industry under pressure. Fragmented audiences. Collapsing trust. Platforms siphoning value. AI rewriting the rules in real time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naturally, I walked straight into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve always been drawn to systems under strain. Over the past 15 years working in Australia, I\u2019ve moved from one extreme to another \u2014 from a hyper-mature, self-cannibalising telco market to an industry still working out what it wants to become. Editorial and news media sits firmly in that in-between decade: less stable, more volatile, and far more revealing of what people actually value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We live in a world saturated with crisis. Geopolitical conflict. Climate volatility. Social fracture. Logic says this should be journalism\u2019s golden age. A moment where evidence, clarity, and accountability matter more than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The data tells a different story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025 shows an industry misaligned with its audience: trust hovering around 40%, engagement slipping, and attention splintering across platforms. The system designed to inform us is faltering at the precise moment it\u2019s most needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yes \u2014 I\u2019ve joined right in the middle of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This isn\u2019t just institutional distrust. It\u2019s cognitive exhaustion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Globally, 58% of people worry about whether they can tell real news from false information. In some countries, that number climbs above 70%. When more than half the world fears being misled, scepticism becomes the default \u2014 even toward legitimate reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trust hasn\u2019t disappeared. It\u2019s become conditional. And boy, do I have lots to say about Trust (as a Marketer\u2026 that\u2019s for another day)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forty per cent of people now actively avoid news, up from 29% in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not because it\u2019s boring. The attention economy rewards constant urgency, outrage, and update cycles. Exactly the content that drives people away. Publishers are incentivised to exhaust their audiences, then puzzled when those audiences disengage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a brutal loop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A decade ago, news consumption clustered around a handful of platforms. Today it\u2019s fractured across Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, and X \u2014 all competing weekly as news sources, all demanding different formats, tones, and compromises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, video has overtaken text as the dominant news format. Audiences increasingly want stories told by someone<\/em>, not by something<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That shift has elevated creators and personalities (commentators, aggregators, explainers) many of whom build trust without bearing the cost of original reporting. People don\u2019t just follow information anymore. They follow filters they trust<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Faceless brands lost something here. Humans filled the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under-25s are already using AI chatbots as a regular news source, drawn by speed, simplicity, and relief from ad-heavy sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But here\u2019s the tension: audiences expect AI to make news cheaper and faster, while simultaneously believing it will make news less trustworthy and less transparent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They still want humans in the loop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Publishers, however, face an existential threat. As AI platforms summarise content directly in search and chat interfaces, referral traffic erodes. Publishers absorb the cost of reporting; platforms capture the attention, loyalty, and revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The risk isn\u2019t irrelevance. Nowhere is this more visible than local news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Newsroom employment has nearly halved over a decade. Remaining journalists carry heavier workloads, produce more content, and spend more time on digital output, often while print advertising still underwrites the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Platforms have replaced newsrooms as local noticeboards. Community information (classifieds, events, buy-and-sell) has moved elsewhere\u2026. Facebook. What remains for publishers is expensive, original reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet many people assume local news is \u201cdoing fine,\u201d because headlines still appear. They don\u2019t see the skeleton crews behind them. And so the urgency to subscribe never quite materialises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even well-intentioned funding brings trade-offs. Grants shape coverage priorities. It\u2019s not corruption \u2014 it\u2019s gravity<\/em>. And it subtly reshapes what gets investigated, and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The data is blunt: audiences want journalism that investigates power, explains complexity, and helps them understand the world. Not just react to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They want context.<\/strong> One clear outlier exists: long-form audio.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Podcasts attract younger, higher-income, highly engaged audiences. Most listeners say they understand issues more deeply through audio than any other medium. And importantly, they\u2019re willing to pay for it. Not as news, but as education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Depth, it turns out, still commands attention \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n If audiences trust individuals more than institutions\u2026 Does journalism\u2019s future sit inside struggling organisations or with individual reporters building direct, paying relationships with audiences?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer matters. Because it determines whether journalism stabilises or transforms into something fundamentally different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which brings me to the industry I\u2019ve stepped into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sixty per cent of car buyers now rely primarily on digital research, arriving at dealerships informed and decisive. Platforms stripped dealers of their information advantage long ago, just as they stripped newsrooms of micro-moments like classifieds, timetables, and listings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What remains valuable is expensive, original insight: testing, explaining, contextualising, and holding manufacturers to account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you\u2019re an automotive publisher, the question is simple:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are you competing on speed and volume \u2014 or on trust, depth, and authority?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Because only one of those games is still winnable\u2026 well. Those are the cards I\u2019ll play walking into new horizons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I joined journalism at a moment when trust is low and attention is fragmented. That\u2019s not a deterrent, it\u2019s the point. People aren\u2019t rejecting news; they\u2019re rejecting noise, exhaustion, and faceless urgency. What still holds value is depth, context, and human judgment. Journalism doesn\u2019t need to be louder. It needs to be worth trusting again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career-and-identity","category-serving-happiness"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Helen","author_link":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/constantchaos.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Because it\u2019s overwhelming.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Shift from Institutions to Individuals<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Then Came AI<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s being <\/strong>summarised out of existence<\/em><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nLocal Journalism: The Quiet Collapse<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What Still Holds Value<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Utility.
Perspective.
Connection.
And, quietly, hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Uncomfortable Question<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If they\u2019ll pay for depth and transparency\u2026
If personality and credibility now travel together\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd Then There\u2019s Automotive<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n