In August 2015, I published an article on media credibility on the company blog, at a time when the digital transformation of journalism was still widely framed as an opportunity rather than a structural risk. Social media were already central to news distribution, but their long-term effects on trust, public debate and professional journalism were far from fully understood.
Re-reading that text today is an uncomfortable exercise — not because it was wrong, but because many of the concerns it raised have since materialised with remarkable clarity.
At the time, the article drew on data from the Reuters Institute showing that Spain ranked among the countries with the lowest levels of trust in the media. What struck me then was not only the scale of public distrust, but the contradiction at its core: audiences were increasingly sceptical of journalism, yet were consuming and sharing news more intensely than ever. That paradox, already visible in 2015, has since become a defining feature of the information ecosystem.
The article also hinted at a trend that was only just beginning to take shape: the transformation of news into a market driven by attention rather than relevance. References to “Trending Topics” and the idea of information behaving like a stock exchange may have sounded speculative at the time. Today, they feel almost understated. Algorithms, metrics and platform logic now play a decisive role in shaping not only what circulates, but what gets produced in the first place.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable aspect of revisiting the text lies in its warnings about professionalism and critical distance. The suggestion that parts of the profession had become too accommodating to power — whether for ideological, economic or career-related reasons — was not meant as provocation, but as diagnosis. Since then, the erosion of editorial independence, the pressure of commercial models and the blurring of lines between journalism, activism and propaganda have only intensified.
What the article did not — and perhaps could not — fully anticipate was the speed at which trust would continue to decline, or the extent to which disinformation, polarisation and platform-driven dynamics would reshape public discourse. Nor did it foresee how fragile the very idea of a shared factual space would become.
And yet, the core argument remains intact: without a firm commitment to quality, credibility and professional ethics, no media model is sustainable. Not economically, not socially, and certainly not democratically.
Looking back, the article now reads less like a commentary on a specific moment and more like an early warning. Not a prophecy in the dramatic sense, but a reflection grounded in observable trends that were already pointing in a clear direction.
If there is a lesson to be drawn from this retrospective reading, it is not that the future was inevitable, but that it was visible. The signals were there. Whether they were ignored, underestimated or simply overridden by economic urgency is a question that still deserves honest examination.
The crisis of media credibility did not arrive suddenly. It was already underway. In 2015, it could still be discussed — even on a corporate blog — as a problem to be addressed through better practices and stronger professional standards. Today, it is more often treated as a condition to be managed.
That shift alone says a great deal about how premonitory — and how unresolved — the issue truly is.