The Poynter Institute published research showing that Americans consider news essential to their lives while simultaneously finding the experience of consuming it deeply unpleasant.
That gap is the defining product problem for modern journalism. It explains why fact-checkers spend their time chasing crime statistics that move faster than verification, why a culture secretary is investigating who owns newspapers, and why a London sales company thinks buyers will pay more for films certified as AI-free.
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Three different stories, one underlying crisis: trust in media products is low enough that professionals are rebuilding infrastructure from scratch.
News Is Essential. News Is Unpleasant. Now What?
Americans say the news is essential, according to Poynter’s analysis of consumption patterns, but they report low satisfaction with actually reading, watching, or listening to it.
This isn’t a partisan divide or a generational quirk. The gap exists across demographics and reflects something more stubborn: audiences need information but find the delivery mechanisms exhausting, confusing, or untrustworthy.
That perception gap creates operational problems for every media professional. When audiences approach information with defensive skepticism, the speed advantage goes to whoever makes the loudest claim first.
President Donald Trump has stated some version of the claim that U.S. crime rates are at their lowest level in 125 years on at least 10 occasions between late January and early February.
Fact-checkers are parsing FBI data, addressing gaps in reporting standards, and explaining why the statement is at minimum misleading. The work happens after the message has already circulated. Verification becomes correction, a fundamentally weaker position.
The ownership question compounds the credibility problem. U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has launched a competition probe into Daily Mail and General Trust’s acquisition of The Telegraph.
She’s focusing on market concentration rather than foreign state influence. When public trust in news institutions is already fragile, questions about who controls those institutions and whether consolidation serves audiences carry more weight.
The underlying issue is whether ownership transparency can rebuild credibility that editorial performance alone hasn’t restored.
At the Markets: AI-Free Labels and International Appetite
The Mise En Scene Company, a London-based sales outfit, has debuted a “No AI Used” certification for its entire slate at the European Film Market in Berlin, publicly verifying that its films contain no artificial intelligence in their production.
MSC launched the initiative with billboards at EFM, making the certification impossible to miss on the market floor. The company is calling for a global standard, framing the label as buyer protection similar to organic certification in food.
This is a bet on provenance becoming a purchasing filter. MSC is assuming enough buyers care about the distinction between human-made and AI-assisted content to use certification when licensing films.
Whether that holds depends on how distribution platforms, broadcasters, and theatrical buyers respond. If “No AI Used” becomes a standard request in acquisition conversations, other sales companies will follow quickly. If buyers treat it as a curiosity, it stalls.
Either way, a sales company spending money on certification infrastructure tells you trust in creative provenance is now a competitive issue.
The rest of Berlin reflects continued demand for director-driven, genre-inflected international content.
Film Factory Entertainment picked up international sales rights to Lucía Puenzo’s crime thriller “Pepita the Gunslinger”, led by Argentine star Luisana Lopilato, showing an exclusive preview to buyers at EFM.
Both projects fit a familiar buyer profile: international co-productions with recognizable creative leads, genre frameworks that travel, and production values that support theatrical or premium streaming release.
Hasbro Says Kids’ Content Monetization Is Broken Enough to Fix
Lumee will manage both companies’ portfolios, including “Peppa Pig,” “Transformers,” “My Little Pony,” and other flagship properties.
The venture is a direct response to YouTube economics. Children’s content performs well in viewership but generates limited revenue due to advertising restrictions and platform policies.
Lumee is designed to bypass those limitations with a dedicated sales operation that negotiates brand partnerships and sponsorship deals directly with marketers rather than relying on platform revenue shares.
For professionals in kids’ media, digital distribution, or advertising, the launch signals three things. IP holders with sufficient scale are willing to invest in proprietary monetization systems rather than accept platform terms. Brand partnerships are becoming more valuable than programmatic advertising for children’s content. And the viewership-to-revenue gap on YouTube is now wide enough that major rights holders are building new entities to address it.
The risk is execution. Building a sales organization from scratch means hiring talent, establishing agency relationships, and proving that direct deals generate more value than platform distribution.
If Lumee works, other large IP holders will follow. If it struggles, it becomes evidence that platform dominance in children’s content is durable regardless of how unhappy creators are.
What This Means
Credibility gaps in news, provenance questions in content sales, monetization challenges in children’s media. Different sectors, same dynamic.
Trust in institutions, platforms, and production methods is low enough that new infrastructure is being built to address it. Fact-checking organizations, certification labels, proprietary sales operations: all attempts to restore value to products that audiences need but approach with skepticism.
Watch how buyers respond to the MSC certification at EFM. If “No AI Used” becomes a standard acquisition filter, provenance certification will spread to other content categories fast. Watch whether other major IP holders follow Hasbro’s lead on dedicated monetization. And watch whether the credibility gap Poynter identifies widens or narrows, because that perception problem determines how much every media company will need to invest in rebuilding trust.
If your organization is navigating these shifts and needs to add talent, post a job on Mediabistro to reach media professionals tracking these changes in real time.
This media news roundup is automatically curated to keep our community up to date on interesting happenings in the creative, media, and publishing professions. It may contain factual errors and should be read for general and informational purposes only. Please refer to the original source of each news item for specific inquiries.
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