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Public trust in the media and in data has been undercut by information overload, relentless social media cycles, and targeted influence campaigns. Whether driven by politics, social movements, or commercial interests, the credibility of what we see and hear is under threat. By thinking through the ways that we’ve lost our trust, we might find more ways to reverse the trend and bring people back together. Last month, Gallup released the latest results of a survey on trust in the media that began in 1972. It showed that current confidence in the mass media is at a new historic low. A majority trusting public in 1972 has now flipped to being a majority distrustful public in 2025. As with most data sets, the subtleties are more complicated. During the first Trump administration, trust rebounded significantlyand then backslid to its lowest point ever after the pandemic. Looking at the data from a partisan lens, overall trust fell across all three groups, with Republicans being the least trusting. But the shock is the growth of the “no trust at all” category: those least trusting Democrats barely changed, but for Republicans, it surged. Social Media Has Worked Us Over Completely The way people around the world access news and information are largely the samethrough the internet. Its growth has been so extreme in our lifetime, one can hardly blame us for acting a bit weird. In 1990, only 25 million people used the internet globallyabout 0.6% of the world. By 2025, 5.6 billion people use social media every day. That’s 64% of the world, a roughly 20,000% increase and we now spend about six and a half hours online every day. This explosive growth over the past 35 years has brought with it a variety of technological and social innovations and challenges. How we interact with information keeps changing, and with it, our language and culture also adapt. It reminds me of this quote by media theorist Marshall McLuhan: “All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences. They leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.” As our connection to the internet grew, it also pushed us apart. Our attention became focused on digital realities and away from our friends and families. This has led to a loneliness epidemic. Studies show that aspects of chronic loneliness impact half of all US adults. And there’s a direct correlation between our lack of trust in the media and the growth of the internet. What was first a feature has become a bugcreating a feedback loop where fear of missing out leads to a reinforcement of what has been missing from many people’s lives. Putting People First in Data Communication Too many data professionals focus more on the data rather than the people reading it. We need an approach to communicating data that fosters genuine understanding and human connectionwhich in turn builds trust. This is as true in business communications as it is in marketing and media. By putting people first in how we understand data and how we communicate it, we address both crises at once. Our mission to restore data credibility should also focus on creating more human connection. This mindset shift towards data communication comes at a historically appropriate time. Looking backwards; the “big data” trend created vast data storehouses built by data engineers. Data scientists were needed to make sense of the data, and in doing so created AI tools to put data to work in a more proactive way. But over the past 15 years, this also helped create a data credibility issue. Now we need a new create a new generation of data communicators to pick up where data science left off and work to find a new way to make data meaningful to more people. How We Can Make It Happen It is a matter of design. To echo the central concepts of design thinking, we have to change our focus from the technology to the humans that need it. Unlike UX design, people do not use a dashboard or a data visualization, they read them. This small change belays a much bigger impact. Data communication is a two-step approach: First, we need to understand what the data means to the people who need it. Then, we should use every tool availablewords, images, diagrams, and storyto design the conversation around their needs and meet them where they are. This shift from data visualization to data communication needs a more balanced approach to how we design for data, and we need an extended skill set to equip the next generation of data communicators to do so. In this way, data is a bridge to connect people to discuss the context of the data. Why this is important to data professionals While the societal forces that created this loneliness epidemic and the distrust of information are nearly impossible to combat, we must try! It happens with each of us. Societal changes begin with the individual, and our work as data communicators means that we can design the relationships around us. It’s a personal approach to creating a more empathetic societya mission that anyone can join, regardless of background and skillset. As data communicators, our work has a special impact. Every chart, every dashboard, and every story can become a bridge to bring people together and rebuild the credibility of shared truth that joins us. By focusing on the communication of the data, we create bridges to connect people and reinforce systems of trust. By empowering a new generation of data communicators, we can make an impact across a range of professionsin business and industry, media and journalism, communications, and fine artto build more trust and create more conversations.
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E-Commerce
For the first time in eight years, pay TV is rising. According to the latest Cord-Cutting Monitor report from analyst firm MoffettNathanson, the number of subscriptions to linear video packages actually rose during the third quarter of 2025. The estimates, which include subscriptions to virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPDs) like YouTube TV, show that the pay-TV industry had 303,000 subscriber additions in the third quarter, marking the first quarterly gain since 2017. However, the research notes that the increase was “reasonably small and seasonal given that it happened during the quarter when the NFL season began, meaning it could potentially see subscribers drop out again at the beginning of Q1 next year. While much of the sequential growth came from the vMPVD segment, traditional video subscriptions via cable TV were down. window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}}); Gains led by YouTube TV and Charter The research overall found that the vMVPD category has been led by YouTube TV, which added an estimated 750,000 subscribers in the third quarter. MoffettNatanson emphasizes that its estimate is a conservative one and could even be an undercount. According to the firm, the bigger takeaway is that Charter Communications has seen significant improvements in pay TV subscriptions, especially after it secured a partnership with the Walt Disney Company two years ago. The deal gave the House of Mouse streaming rights to Charters video subscribers at no extra cost. It came after similar agreements with Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and NBCUniversal. These deals also allowed for Charter to market its video offerings again, promoting it as free live TV, with a discount on bundled streaming services like the Disney+ and Hulu bundle, ESPN Unlimited, HBO Max Basic with Ads and more, to reach young viewers. The research also suggests that since Charter renewed its commitment to video, the company has been able to cut its quarterly subscriber losses by two-thirds. Charter is also likely to bring its new video packaging strategy as well as its agreements to Cox Communications when the two finally close their merger next year. Though Charters improvements stood out the most, MoffettNatansons monitor also found that Comcast has seen some improvements for the last eight quarters where decline has been the slowest, meaning that cord-cutting is happening at a slower rate. Meanwhile, satellite TV providers like DirecTV and EchoStar have also seen some minor improvements, the report found. MoffettNatanson points out that while traditional distributors are still declining, vMVPDs are continuing to grow at an annual rate of 4.6%. Over the past 15 years, the shift in cord-cutting has been dramatic. As cited in a report by S&P Global last month, households that subscribe to traditional cable TV peaked in 2012 at 101 million, but the figure is now less than half that. The rise of live-TV streaming bundles with services like Slingwhich launched in 2015have traditionally not been enough to offset that decline.
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E-Commerce
When youre trying to snazz up your emails with a signature at the bottom, its all too easy to overthink it. Gmails signature tool offers extensive formatting options. (Want to sign off in Comic Sans? Go for it.) And typical signature-builder sites can get even more complex, with seemingly endless fonts, buttons, and shiny doodads to choose from. The truth is, you dont need all that to sign your emails in a presentable way. Just an image and a handful of descriptive lines should do the trick, and this free tool will give you just that without tempting you to go overboard. This tip originally appeared in the free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. Get the next issue in your inbox and get ready to discover all sorts of awesome tech treasures! A simpler email signature To create a slick email signature in seconds, check out Simple Signature. Simple Signature is a free email signature builder with minimal formatting options. Itll take about five minutes to get your signature looking just-so. The sites signatures are intended to work with a wide range of email providers. When youre finished, just copy and paste it into your email sites signature editor. Simple Signature starts you off with a John Doe template that includes a placeholder image at the top. You can add your own image by clicking the Upload Logo or Image button, or click the little eye icon to hide it. You can also use the other icons in this section to resize or reposition the image. Simple Signature’s editor is easy to use without being overkill. From there, its just a matter of adding, removing, or modifying the other fields in the template. The site lets you choose from just a few different field types: Text fields are for things like your name, title, address, and phone number. Link fields are for things the recipient can click on, like a website, social media account, or email address. Space fields are for adding a visual buffer between parts of your signature. For links, youll see two fields to fill out side-by-side. The first is for the text that appears in your signature, and the second is for the page that loads when someone clicks the link. Make sure to use the format mailto:youraddress@email.com for email addresses. Simple Signatures font options are intentionally limited. You can either choose Helvetica, Arial, Mono, or nothing (which will just use the email providers default font). Once youre finished, just click the Copy Signature button in the top-right corner. This will add the signature to your clipboard, so you can paste it into your email apps signature form. The site even offers instructions for adding the signature to Gmail as well as Outlook or Apple Mail. If all that seems a little too basic, well, thats the point. Other signature editors might let you do more, but this is the only one Im aware of with a manifesto on why you shouldnt. Simple Signature works in any web browser, though you should probably use it on a computer instead of a phone, as you may have difficulty pasting the signature into your email providers mobile app. The site is free to use with no ads for creating a single signature. Theres an optional $99 per year Pro version for business users who want to create lots of signatures and share them with team members. No sign-up is required unless you want to start editing a signature on one device and finish up on another. The sites privacy policy is easy to understand and makes clear that your data isnt used for any purpose but to provide the signature builder. Treat yourself to all sorts of brain-boosting goodies like this with the free Cool Tools newsletterstarting with an instant introduction to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in truly delightful ways.
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E-Commerce
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