Mainstream journalism is facing a cornucopia of challenges perhaps most notably the issue of 'fake news'. Although panelist Tom Standage pointed out that this is by no means a modern phenomenon.
He believes this goes back to the early days of the printing press when, if you had nothing to print, you could dust off an old pamphlet about a witch trial or terrible disaster, change the details and print it off. People loved to read about it and had no way of verifying its credibility.
As the first news-sheets arrived in the 18th century, editors took a more responsible approach and realised they had to be reliable and trustworthy thus began modern trusted journalism.
According to Alex Delamain, President of the World Media Group and Head of Client Sales and Services at The Economist, the return to 'fake news' has been driven by the internet's disaggregation of newspapers due to the fact it is often impossible to find the provenance of a story shared via social media.
"Clearly it's worrying but it has led to the big media brands focusing more than ever on quality journalism not just for commercial reasons but because the sustainability of trusted journalism is paramount to society. For instance, without it people would not have exposure to topics like climate change and so there would be no behaviour change."
Hayley Romer, Chief Revenue Officer and Publisher at The Atlantic
Kunal Dutta, Chief Editor of Digital Channels at Shell also believes that factual rigour is being applied to corporate content as well.
His team members all have journalistic backgrounds which means they take a journalistic approach to information inside the business. They apply strict checks and balances to all their stories and truth always outweighs the marketing messages.
Seven Pearls of Wisdom from the Shell Newsroom by CIPR Influence
https://influenceonline.co.uk/2017/09/15/7-pearls-wisdom-shell-newsroom/
Gerard Baker, editor of the Wall Street Journal, speaks at City University on the evolution of business journalism