Online News Bounces Back From Post-Election Traffic Slump

Online media, which was once hailed to be the annihilator of traditional media sources, including print and television, has been through volatile showing amid and in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election. At the same time, this avenue of news and information has seen reader's trust in it erode in recent times.

Data from Statista showed that traffic to online news media sites has seen an improvement from the post-election slump. Online sources saw a steady increase in traffic since August 2016, with the traffic numbers peaking with the Nov. 8 elections.

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Thereafter, there has been a steady decline in traffic into the online media, with numbers dipping below August 2016 levels. Since mid-December 2016, traffic has begun picking up and has gone above the August 2016 levels in January.

Time Warner Inc TWX's CNN had 464.5 million visits in August 2016, which rose to over 600 million amid the elections. After the post-election slump, the numbers have improved to 533 million.

New York Times Co NYT, which boasted of 345 million visits last August, had about 500 million visits around the Nov. 8 elections. This numbers, though declining thereafter, has inflected in December and reached 432 million in January.

Source: Statista

At the same time, trust in mass media is steadily eroding. Data based on telephonic interviews conducted in September 2016, with a random sample of 1,020 adults in the United States, suggested that trust in mass media has deteriorated quite rapidly in 2016, dropping to new lows.

The percentage of respondents saying they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in mass media has fallen to 32 percent for all respondents in 2016 from 50+ percent in 1997. In 2015, the percentage was about 40 percent.

Quite understandably, Republicans now repose only very little faith in the mass media, with 14 percent expressing trust in 2016 compared to over 30 percent in 2015 and 40 percent in 1997.

Meanwhile, Democrats seem to be the group that has continued to have faith in the mass media. Even with them, there is a deterioration, although by not as much the Republicans. From around 65 percent, the percentage of people who trust the mass media has fallen to 51 percent in 2016. In 2015, the number was around 55 percent.

Source: Statista

President Donald Trump has been highly critical of news organizations such as the New York Times and CNN, with the president alleging that these are spreading fake news. Last Friday, Trump stepped up his tirade against mass media, labeling them as "the enemy of the American people."

The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017

Things might be looking up for the online media sources. Ironically, despite his media bashing, Trump might be the reason behind the recent pickup they are seeing. His controversial policy decisions, including the infamous travel ban, could have contributed to the rise in traffic trends. Will the news sources now build up on this momentum and at the same time win back the trust of people?

Image Credit: By "EP." (19. century) - Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons