News organizations must adapt to the changing media landscape or risk becoming irrelevant, World News Day co-organizer Branko Brkic has warned. Brkic, who founded South Africa’s Daily Maverick, said journalism remains a vital part of an information-based society. However, he warned that traditional media organizations cannot keep operating the same way as before.
“The old days are not coming back,” he said. “We need to form a new equilibrium, and the only way we can do it is that if we actually join forces.” His comments come as more than 1,000 news organizations around the world support World News Day on Monday.
Participating media groups, including The New York Times, Reuters and the Kyiv Independent, are sharing editorials, advertisements and cartoons. Their shared message is that “trusted journalism matters.” Moreover, Brkic said organizations that were once competitors now need to work together.
“If we do not change the game, we are just not going to exist,” he said. Furthermore, he warned that continued fragmentation could leave established media outlets vulnerable. “If we continue like this, we’re just going to be weak individual players waiting to be taken out,” he said. “If we don’t change something pretty fundamentally and pretty urgently, we’re just going to be roadkill.”
The warning comes as trust in news continues to decline worldwide. According to the Reuters Institute’s latest Digital News Report, trust in news fell to a new low in 2026. Meanwhile, more people are turning to social media and AI chatbots for news. The report also found that social media and video platforms overtook news organizations’ own websites and apps as the main source of online news last year, although audiences trust these platforms less.
A separate report from UK media regulator Ofcom found that people now get news from a wider range of sources. YouTube is growing rapidly, and 20% of people use AI tools to access news. However, Ofcom found that traditional news providers are still considered more trustworthy, accurate and impartial than online platforms.
Brkic acknowledged that mainstream media organizations have made mistakes. Still, he said professional journalism remains essential. “We cannot function without a thing called the truth, without facts,” he said. He added that journalism remains part of the basic information infrastructure of society.
Therefore, he said society itself depends on that infrastructure. “This is the information-based society. We are the infrastructure for that information-based society,” Brkic said. “And that society is actually going to really struggle without us.” Finally, his remarks add to a growing debate about the future shape of journalism worldwide.
