Zac Wenzel
zw022118@ohio.edu
American's mistrust in the media is understandable. There have been countless occasions of media outlets both big and small either getting stories wrong, misreporting, or misrepresenting. What adds an extra layer to the story of media mistrust in America is the 2016 election of President Donald Trump, without a doubt the most polarizing President since Abraham Lincoln.
Since the 2016 election, according to a 2018 Gallup Poll, 45% of Americans trust the mass media which is up by 41% in 2017 and 32% in 2016 and democrats trust in mass media is the highest it has been in 20 years. Those numbers tell me that more than half of Americans polled still distrust the media, and that the trust is partisan.
A 2016 article by Derek Thompson on The Atlantic tries to answer the question "Why Do Americans Distrust the Media?" Thompson lays out his potential reasons behind the collapse of trust in the media, one is which is, "When it's easier to find new sources that confirm people's biases, it's also easier to find news stories that inflame their outrage." Depending on your Facebook and Twitter following, which newspapers you read, or which news you watch, a lot of people get entrenched in their own views and the media outlets they turn to support both the positive and negative aspects and distrust grows of the other beliefs.
These days in America, when it comes to the media, to a lot of Americans it is either the enemy of the people or the saving grace in a world of lies. Unfortunately, for the past three years, we have had a leader that pours gasoline onto the fire that is media trust/distrust. I’d like to propose a challenge to all those who read this. Try and find a criticism of our current Presidential administration that has not been marked as “fake news”. This is not the first time America’s trust in the media has been weaponized for political purposes, but the level that it is these days makes one long for the Nixonian days of the 1970s.
I am admittedly an unabashed Trump “hater” for lack of a better term. But my concerns lie much deeper than a political affiliation. As a hopeful future member of the media, I want to live and work in a world where my words will be trusted. Chapter 10 of Elements of Journalism states, “In the end, most journalists should feel that communicating to fellow citizens is a mission that transcends the institution where they work. That is a calling, and everyone who works in a newsroom is a steward of that mission.”
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