In 2025, only 38 per cent of Australians say they trust the media. That figure, shared by independent outlet ETTE Media, founded by award-winning journalists Jan Fran and Antoinette Lattouf, stopped me mid-scroll.
Curious, I traced it back to the Edelman Trust Barometer, which paints a stark picture: Australians’ trust in institutions has collapsed.
Our national Trust Index now sits at 49, placing us firmly in the “distrust” category. Alarmingly, 68 per cent of Australians believe journalists lie or serve narrow interests, ranking media as untrustworthy as business leaders and government. This isn’t just a crisis of confidence, it’s a crisis of legitimacy, with profound consequences for women, marginalised communities, and democracy itself.
We saw this erosion of trust play out during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in Victoria. Daily press conferences became media spectacles with journalists chasing gotcha moments rather than accountability. The Independent Pandemic Management Advisory Committee (IPMAC) later reviewed communication failures, but few media outlets reflected on their own role in undermining public trust.
The 2025 Digital News Report (Australia) reveals how this distrust is reshaping news consumption. For the first time, social media (26 per cent) has overtaken online news outlets (23 per cent) as the primary source of news. Television still leads (37 per cent), but younger Australians increasingly turn to TikTok (37 per cent) and Instagram (34 per cent)—platforms where misinformation spreads quickly and editorial standards are often absent. Even among those with news literacy education, 69 per cent say they actively avoid news due to emotional fatigue or distrust—especially women.
This fragmentation of the media landscape is fertile ground for anti-rights movements. When powerful politicians label inconvenient truths as “fake news,” and journalists pursue personal agendas over impartial reporting, as we saw during the Voice referendum, the public loses its compass. Distrust becomes a tool for manipulation. Polarisation deepens. And the space for informed, democratic debate shrinks.
Globally, this trend is accelerating. In the 2024 U.S. election, candidates and voters alike turned away from traditional news outlets, relying instead on podcasts, influencers, and partisan platforms. Australia’s recent federal election mirrored this shift, with political discourse increasingly playing out on Instagram stories and TikTok lives rather than in newspapers or on nightly news bulletins. The media landscape has changed—and that’s okay. But the absence of editorial oversight on these platforms means misinformation spreads unchecked, and bias becomes harder to detect.
For women, this shift is especially dangerous. Anti-rights rhetoric often targets bodily autonomy, reproductive justice, and gender equity which are issues that demand nuanced, fact-based reporting. When media fails to provide that, our communities are left vulnerable to manipulation and erasure. The rise of deepfakes and AI-generated content further complicates our ability to discern truth from fiction, making it harder to hold power to account.
We can’t afford to be passive observers of this shift. Rebuilding trust in media means acknowledging its failures including biases, sensationalism, and complicity in power structures, but also reimagining its future. It means supporting independent outlets like Women’s Agenda and ETTE Media, which are committed to truth-telling and representation. It means investing in media literacy so Australians can critically engage with the content they consume, whether it’s a podcast, a news article, or a viral video. And it means demanding that journalism serve the public interest not political agendas or corporate profits.
In 2025, distrust in media is not just a symptom, it’s a warning. It signals a deeper collapse in institutional faith, driven by crisis mismanagement and the erosion of journalistic ethics. But acknowledging this opens a path forward. Restoring trust isn’t about longing for a golden past, it’s about bold reinvention. By embracing accountability, fostering media literacy and amplifying diverse voices journalism can once again become a force for truth and a foundation for collective hope.
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