Have you already been influenced?

In today's news media landscape, individuals are increasingly combining traditional and digital media to create personalized news diets, raising concerns about unequal exposure to reliable information. A growing concern is the declining public trust in news media, particularly in relation to climate change. While the topic remains highly relevant in public debate, trust in its coverage varies considerably. This often depends on the format in which the news is presented, the source delivering it, and how credible that source is perceived to be. From this perspective, this study examines the impact of different news media repertoires, traditional and cross-media, on trust in news media reporting about climate change. In addition, it explores whether exposure to social media influencer's (SMI) commentary moderates this relationship. The main research question is: "To what extent do traditional and cross-media news repertoires influence trust in climate change news among news consumers?". The sub-question is: "To what extent does exposure to SMI's commentary moderate these relationships?". To answer these questions, a quantitative survey experiment was conducted (N = 101), where participants were randomly assigned to read a climate change news article from either a traditional or cross-media news source, followed by exposure to an SMI commentary (in the experimental groups). Trust in climate change news media was measured across three dimensions: trust in media type, trust in news actors, and trust in news content. Media repertoire usage was operationalized through adapted scales from previous studies, and participants were grouped based on their dominant media consumption patterns. Hypothesis testing was performed using a simple linear regression, independent samples t-tests, and multiple linear regression with an interaction term to assess moderation effects. The findings show that both traditional and cross-media news users report a positive impact on trust in news media reporting about climate change, with a significantly higher level of trust among traditional news users compared to the cross-media news users. No significant moderation effect was found for SMI commentary, suggesting that exposure to SMI commentary does not alter trust in news media reporting about climate change. Control variables such as age, gender, interest in climate change, nationality, and employment status were also found to be non-significant. These results highlight the importance of news media consumption patterns in shaping trust, while suggesting a limited role for SMIs in this context.