The contemporary news environment faces significant challenges, including information overload and declining attention for traditional news organizations. A central issue is news media trust and its role in democratic life. However, what constitutes ‘trust’ in news and how it is measured is subject to ongoing debate, complicating the widespread reliance on surveys to track public trust. This study examines how trust in news media has been defined and operationalized in survey research, identifying commonalities, divergences, and gaps. We conducted a systematic literature review of 131 recent articles, focusing on 37 that employed large-scale surveys, to investigate trust's conception and implementation. We analyzed how these surveys developed questions and scales to reflect their definitions. Our review shows points of convergence but also significant disagreement in how scholars conceptualize trust. This lack of consistency makes it challenging to consolidate research and generalize results, problematizing the meaning of public trust surveys. We propose a consolidated conception of news media trust that reconciles varied trust conceptions and the ambiguous boundaries of today's news media. This reframing aims to strengthen future survey research by providing a clearer, more inclusive foundation for measuring news media trust.