Publishers could strengthen their businesses by restoring the trust of fake-weary audiences, a new INMA report says.

Laying out a road map for newsrooms based on best practices that advance trust indicators, the report, 'How News Brands Are Rebuilding Trust', is based on global research and case studies from The Trust Project, an international consortium of news organisations building standards of transparency and working with tech platforms to amplify journalism's commitment to transparency, accuracy, inclusion, and fairness.

It says the reinvention of news media's business model can be significantly advanced by newsrooms that restore trust from audiences inundated by fake news and misinformation.

Rebuilding trust - considered the most ethical and foundationally economic consideration news companies are confronting - "must be intentional and executed with urgency", according to the report.

At a time when media companies around the world are focused on subscription revenue, research shows audiences will not pay for that which they do not trust.

Report author and Trust Project founder Sally Lehrman explains how media companies are implementing "trust indicators" in newsrooms around the world - notably El Comercio in Peru, Il Sole 24 Ore in Italy, South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and MediaNews Group in the US.

Lehrman also shares research from the just-released Edelman Trust Barometer, which shows - in light of the global pandemic and the US presidential election -trust for mainstream news companies is headed in the wrong direction.

The INMA report looks at four steps necessary for newsrooms as they rebuild trust:

-acknowledge change is needed;

-strengthen standards and policies;

-heighten transparency; and

-engage.

"Recent data from public surveys show we can succeed - and the moment to take action is now," Lehrman says. "The global pandemic has awakened more people to the value of accurate news and their own role in choosing it... The news industry must connect even more deeply to the principles of social responsibility at journalism's heart and become the people's trusted, responsible, and responsive ally. We must do so not just for philosophical reasons, but for our very survival."

'How News Brands Are Rebuilding Trust' is available for free to INMA members and for purchase by non-members at www.inma.org/reports.