Last week, Gallup published a poll that showed Americans don’t have much confidence in the media. Only 54% of Democrats, 27% of independents, and 12% of Republicans trust “mass media,” defined by Gallup as “newspapers, TV and radio,” when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly.
Well, there’s one problem. Define accurately and fairly. Those are subjective terms often pasted into mission statements to project the embrace of journalistic morality and high standards. But do they have any meaning when so many outlets report the news through filters that seem to exclusively favor one side of the political divide? Perhaps that’s why the public is increasingly disaffected.
So how much longer can these behemoths survive as the public’s confidence in them dwindles? Is this just a trendy three-year low, a prolonged hiccup, something big media will one day look back on and laugh about – or is this a long, ungraceful descent into oblivion?
Maimed Media
A time existed when the purpose of journalism was, one might argue, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth – no matter who it offended or which party might look bad in the process. But nowadays, as Thomas Sowell once wrote, “Too many people in the media cannot seem to tell the difference between reporting the news and creating propaganda.” Also unhelpful is that “[i]n some venues,” wrote Politico’s Jack Shafer, “reporters now do their work with all the passion of an accountant, and it shows in their guarded, couched and equivocating copy.”
However, mass media is up against a culture that apparently cultivated countless ideologues dedicated to reading, viewing, and producing only content affirming their beliefs. Use the wrong word or positively depict an official the target audience despises, and many will simply find another news source that corroborates their worldview. On the other hand, the increasing lack of trust might be the media’s own doing. “By 2016 we’d raised a generation of viewers who had no conception of politics as an activity that might or should involve compromise,” wrote veteran journalist Matt Taibbi in his book Hate, Inc. “Your team either won or lost, and you felt devastated or vindicated accordingly. We were training rooters instead of readers.” Powerful evidence of Taibbi’s point could be found in the recent decisions by The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times not to endorse a presidential candidate. Their readers went ballistic, with tens of thousands immediately canceling their subscriptions and several editors resigning. […]
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