That world has not completely disappeared. But it has lost something essential: its monopoly on legitimacy.
Just as a considerable proportion of the French population no longer truly believes in the ability of national politics to change their daily lives, many no longer automatically regard the mainstream media as the natural arbiters of reality.
The figures are striking. In February 2026, the CEVIPOF barometer indicated that only 22 per cent of the French public said they had confidence in politics, and 15 per cent in political parties. In the same survey, confidence in the media stood at just 29 per cent.
The parallel is not insignificant.
Politics and the media have long occupied a similar position: they were the necessary intermediaries. One represented the citizen. The others selected and interpreted the world.
Yet we have now entered an era of mistrust towards intermediaries.
“Why should I believe you?”
This is perhaps the central question of our time.
Why should we trust a television commentator more than an academic speaking directly on YouTube? Why wait for the evening news to see a video that has been available for three hours on Telegram, TikTok or X? Why read a 500-word summary of a report when the report itself is available online?
The internet has not simply accelerated the flow of information.
It has dismantled part of its vertical structure.
In the past, a piece of news would make its way up to a journalist, be verified, prioritised, edited, and then passed down to the public.
Today, everything flows in all directions.
The witness becomes the broadcaster.
The specialist becomes the media outlet.
The politician becomes their own journalist.
The citizen becomes a commentator.
And now, artificial intelligence, too, is becoming a gateway to information.
The Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2026 observes precisely such a historic shift: across the 48 markets studied, social media and video platforms have, for the first time, become the most widely used means of accessing online news, ahead of the media organisations’ own websites and apps.
It is a silent revolution.
France is particularly sceptical
French mistrust of the media is not merely a perception.
According to the Reuters Institute, only 29 per cent of French respondents say they trust news in general in 2026, a low figure that remains stable compared with the previous year. The stated interest in news now stands at just 36 per cent.
Even more telling: 66 per cent of French respondents believe that media owners influence their editorial coverage, whilst 64 per cent think that politicians or governments also exert an influence.
Whether or not these perceptions are always justified, they radically alter the relationship between the public and newsrooms.
News is no longer simply consumed.
It is immediately scrutinised:
Who owns this media outlet?
Who is speaking?
Why now?
What’s in it for them?
What aren’t they showing me?
Suspicion has become a reflex when consuming news.
But the paradox is immense
The problem is that the rejection of traditional media does not in any way mean that the need for information has disappeared.
In fact, it is sometimes exactly the opposite.
We look everywhere.
We compare.
We watch a TV clip on X, an analysis on YouTube, a TikTok video, then check Wikipedia, Google, a podcast, a newspaper article and now an AI.
The French haven’t necessarily stopped wanting to know.
They have stopped accepting that a handful of players alone decide how they should be informed.
It’s very different.
In France, 29 per cent of those surveyed by Reuters say they get some of their news from content creators. But only 3 per cent say that these content creators are sufficient to meet all their news needs. In other words, new media are not simply replacing the old: they are adding to it and creating a much more fragmented landscape.
Journalists no longer have the final say
This is probably what some traditional newsrooms have found hardest to accept.
For a long time, publishing an article marked the end of the process.
Today, it is only the beginning.
Within seconds of being published, the article is commented on, challenged, taken out of context, repurposed and compared with other sources.
An error may be spotted by an internet user.
An omitted excerpt may resurface.
A contradiction may be documented.
A full interview can help verify whether a sentence has actually been taken out of context.
This sometimes significantly improves public debate.
But it also creates a massive information chaos.
For removing the old gatekeepers does not eliminate lies, propaganda or manipulation.
It also democratises them.
Scepticism can sometimes protect us. It can also make us vulnerable.
There is an extremely dangerous intellectual trap:
assuming that, because a traditional media outlet can be wrong, the opposite must necessarily be true.
This is precisely how certain pieces of disinformation thrive.
A television channel can make mistakes.
A newspaper may have an editorial line.
A billionaire may own a media outlet.
A journalist may have biases.
But an anonymous Telegram account may also lie.
An influencer may be paid.
A video may be manipulated.
An image can be generated.
A fake news site can mimic a genuine newspaper.
The Reuters Institute points out, moreover, that in France the local elections in March 2026 were affected by a disinformation campaign using websites designed to resemble local media outlets.
This is the ambiguity of the current revolution.
We have gained extraordinary freedom of access to information at the very moment when it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine what is worthy of our trust.
Mainstream media are unlikely to disappear
The term ‘mainstream’ has itself become pejorative.
It is used indiscriminately to refer to TF1, France Télévisions, Le Monde, BFMTV, Le Figaro, Radio France or, at times, any media outlet employing professional journalists.
But to predict their demise would be a mistake.
They still have editorial teams, correspondents, legal experts, archives, fact-checking procedures and, above all, the resources needed to produce the original news stories that social media then comment on.
The real transformation lies elsewhere.
They are no longer alone.
And their name alone is no longer enough to automatically win people over.
They must now constantly earn the trust that was once almost automatically granted to them.
This is probably a good thing for journalism.
Provided it understands this.
The next battle: trust
The media battle of the 2000s centred on audience figures.
That of the 2010s centred on social media.
The one that is now beginning will probably centre on something far more precious:
Trust.
In a world where anyone can publish, comment, create an image, produce a credible video or ask artificial intelligence to summarise the news, the value of a media outlet will soon no longer lie solely in being fast.
Everyone is quick.
It will lie in being identifiable, transparent, verifiable and honest enough to acknowledge what it does not know.
The media of tomorrow may need to proclaim less:
‘This is the truth.’
And say more:
‘This is what we know, this is how we know it, this is what remains uncertain, and these are our sources.’
This change may seem tiny.
It is revolutionary.
For what is dying may not be the press.
This is the era when a few media outlets could claim, on their own, to organise reality for everyone.
The information revolution has already begun.
And no one yet knows exactly what will replace the old world.
