In an opinion piece on Monday, Amazon.com, Inc. founder and owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, addressed the growing crisis of trust in news media and shared his strategy to tackle this issue.
What Happened: In his post, Bezos acknowledged the results of a Gallup poll that ranked the media profession as the least trusted, even below Congress.
He likened the media’s role to that of voting machines, where both accuracy and perceived trustworthiness are essential. However, the tech mogul said that the media has been perceived as biased and out of touch, which has hurt its credibility.
“It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help,” he stated.
As part of his strategy to reclaim the lost credibility, Bezos announced the end of presidential endorsements by The Washington Post, stating that such endorsements create a perception of bias.
He also assured readers that his ownership of various businesses and philanthropies does not influence his decisions at The Post.
Recognizing the competition from unverified online sources, Bezos stresses that The Post cannot be passive in addressing misinformation.
“Lack of credibility isn't unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue,” he wrote, adding, “Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts, and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions.”
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Why It Matters: The media landscape has been undergoing significant changes, with alternative news sources gaining popularity. Last year a survey conducted by Reuters revealed that 20% of young adults now rely on ByteDance-owned TikTok for news.
This year also, the survey showed that Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG GOOGL YouTube is accessed weekly for news by nearly one-third of global respondents, while Meta Platforfms, Inc.’s META WhatsApp engages around 21%.
TikTok (13%) has also surpassed Elon Musk’s Twitter, now rebranded as X, which reaches 10%.
Meanwhile, news consumption on Facebook has dropped significantly, particularly outside Europe and the U.S., where reliance on private messaging apps and video networks is rising, the survey suggested.
Previously, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also acknowledged the role of new media in shaping election outcomes.
“This seems like the first election where new media has fully flipped traditional media. Long form podcasts, X/social, prediction markets, etc. deciding this election," the cryptocurrency mogul said over the weekend.
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