It is not a good time for journalism: in many Western countries, public trust in the news media lies at historical lows. According to the Reuters Digital News Report (N. Newman, A. Ross Arguedas, C. T. Robertson, R. K. Nielsen, R. Fletche, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2025), in the United Kingdom only around one-third of the public trusts the news media, which is down from around one-half in the mid-2010s. Profound technological changes in the information and communication landscape such as the rise of the internet and social media, as well as the connected spread of fake news and conspiracy theories, are often blamed for this rising disrepute. But is this really the case? And how much has the news media system really changed?

To come to grips with the crisis of news media and its consequences for liberal democracies, we need new comprehensive maps of the news landscape such as the one offered by Kenneth Newton's Real News about the News: Media and British Politics. The book develops a systematic account of different aspects of the media system, its supply (namely the different news media available to the public), demand (how people consume them), and their combined consequences for public opinion and the political system. The author, emeritus professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Southampton, sets out to