Trust in Media

If one advocates more transparency on the part of the press because it makes for more informative and comprehensive journalism, fine—a greater degree of “showing one’s work” could make journalism more instructive. But I don’t think it will bolster trust.

More and more, Government is producing neither the inspiration nor the concrete policies to make anyone more trusting. And politics is getting more sharply polarized. Democrats are much more likely to be “consistently liberal” and Republicans “consistently conservative” on matters like taxation, government spending, regulation, and environmental protection than they were 50 years ago, when trust in the media ran higher.

Would it help if news organizations were more transparent about how they produce the news? What might help is a reduction, by way of policy, in economic inequality and in inequality of social recognition and dignity. With that, I’d hope, would come a reduction in political polarization, with concomitantly reduced incentives for politicians to seek applause for extreme statements, including disparagement of political opponents. We need to help our poorest and most underprivileged to make our communities better, but the media does little or nothing to advance their cause.

Perhaps it’s not surprising to learn that journalism’s self-defined mission of “holding government accountable” is hurting trust. In the past 40 years, “accountability journalism” has come to assert itself as a defining feature of mainstream newsrooms. The news is much less deferential than it once was to institutions and people in power. That may be good, but it also means that a lot of people are going to distrust the media, particularly when their favorite politicians or the parties they identify with are critically appraised or openly confronted by journalistic investigation, information, or opinion. It will not matter how many “meet the reporters” events news organizations sponsor or how much they itemize where every bit of information in a news story came from. What people don’t like about the media is its implicit or explicit criticism of their heroes. It’s just more comforting and, let’s face it, more human to blame the messenger than to take critical reports seriously.

“The media” is more responsible, more accurate, more informed by sophisticated analysis (rather than partisan) than it has ever been before. But political opinion has grown more polarized. And that is reinforced by the press: as the once-reliable business model of news gathering disintegrates, polarized politics becomes, sadly, a delicious topic for highly competitive outlets to report on. It is more tempting, for instance, to cover a government shutdown in play-by-play sports style as a conflict between Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi than to explain what a government shutdown actually involves. Our best news outlets attempt to do the latter, but a “government shutdown” news of the day tends to cover conflicts in Washington. What a government shutdown means for federal employees, for income tax refunds, for food inspections, for the number of Transportation Security Administration workers at airports, for access to national parks—this requires reporting on far more than what Congress and the White House can agree on and how long that takes. It requires finding the story wherever around the country federal workers are furloughed, not just Washington. 

Can journalism curb its passion for play-by-play news? I don’t see that happening; on the contrary, matters only get worse with the 24-hour news cycle. Can journalism break its commitment to holding politicians accountable and treating them with skepticism? I hope not—even if that might increase trust. 

Some things are more important than how people respond to pollsters asking about trust. One of those things is responsible, accountability-centered journalism.

And we don’t have it anymore. This last election has proven this without question. Who will lead the real rebirth of a dying industry where newspapers are failing every day? I don’t know, but I do know, that without trust, no relationship works. And that current problem must be addressed before any positive change happens.

Ted's Community