Trust in journalism is at 28%.
That’s not a technology problem. That’s a people problem.
I’ve said for years that legacy media is stuck in 1995. But after hearing Travis Jones talk about newsrooms, I realized my frustration was aimed at the wrong people.
The real resistance isn’t in the C-suite.
It’s in middle management.
Jones calls them 'the resistance': editors and mid-level leaders who mix up tradition and journalism and won’t change. They’re not bad people. Many did great work under the old rules. But what worked before doesn’t always work now.
I’ve seen this myself. When I was a news director, the GMs usually got it. They saw the numbers and knew what was at stake. But the layer between the corner office and the newsroom floor? That’s where ideas stalled.
Here’s what kills me:
Legacy newsrooms treat creator-style content like a Saturday-only burger special.
Jones uses this analogy, and it’s perfect. A viewer stumbles onto something different—a creator-driven story, a personality-forward piece, something that actually feels human—and they love it. They come back the next day expecting more.
But the feed is still full of the same formats people have ignored for years.
If you want people to stick around, you have to give them what they came for every day.
The Authenticity Shift
There’s a bigger shift happening than just formats.
Audiences don’t want Ken and Barbie anchors anymore.
They want real people who talk with them, not at them. They want to know how the story was made. They want journalists who show personality, admit what they don’t know, and let the audience see how things work.
That’s not unprofessional. That’s how trust gets built now.
The research backs this up. Trust is moving from institutions to personal connections, where people feel like they know someone even if they’ve never met. Audiences don’t trust the logo. They trust the person.
I spent over 20 years in newsrooms watching talented people get told to hold back. Don’t be too opinionated. Don’t show too much personality. Don’t make it about you.
That advice made sense when people trusted the institution.
It doesn’t anymore.
The Broken Pipeline
And here’s the part that keeps me up at night:
The university pipeline is still, for the most part, training 20-year-olds on 1990s standards.
They’re learning inverted pyramids, AP style, and how to write for a broadcast audience that’s almost gone. They’re not learning how to build an audience on TikTok. They’re not learning how to build trust online. They’re not learning that the platform is now the story.
Jones tells me he’s seen “too many 22-year-olds saying, well, my 73-year-old professor that was an anchor back in 1983 told me that’s what we do. And it’s a complete misconception.”
Jones says the pipeline is broken and “just keeps churning out the same old, same old.”
The Prescription
Jones offers a clear path forward:
→ 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. The stations that win will be the ones that own a specific audience and serve them deeply.
→ 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗱𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗼𝘀. The journalist 𝘪𝘴 the brand now. Invest in people, not just platforms.
→ 𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀. When journalists build their own audiences, the parent brand benefits through affinity. The fear that they’ll “take the audience with them” assumes the audience belonged to the institution in the first place. It didn’t.
Stations that get this will stop being invisible to people under 50.
The ones that don’t?
They’ll keep asking why no one is watching.
The research is in. The playbook is clear.
The only question left is whether the people in the middle will let change happen or keep blocking it.