Should we Trust our Local and International News or Maybe just One or the Other?

Miranda Mariner

mq044416@ohio.edu

At the beginning of this crazy thing we call life, we all start with a certain amount of trust. Young mind’s full of purity and innocence do not know that sometimes the world can be cruel and untrustworthy. As life goes on, everyone finds out along their own special paths about how trustworthy the world is, including the media. 

Along these spoken for, special paths, each person may find themselves trustworthy of the news or not. This all depends on upbringings, political stance, religious stance, experiences, and who knows what else. The open-ended question of should we trust the media causes a controversy in and of itself.

Trust in local news has increased in the last year. Due to numerous events including but not limited to; Donald Trump’s war on the media, some may question has trust in the local news truly increased? How could this be possible if our own President believes and preaches otherwise? 

According to the new Poynter MediaTrust Survey, it found that 78% of Americans across the political spectrum have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in their local television news and 73% have confidence in their local newspapers. This deeply contrasts the 55% trust in national network news, 59% in national newspapers and 47% in online-only news platforms. Not only among the total population, but those who define themselves as Republicans have been more likely to trust their local news or newspaper compared to national network television news and national papers. Coincidence? I think not.

In a study conducted based on the trustin 38 different major news organizations, the results were somewhat shocking. All 38 news outlets had a trusting rate of lower than 58%. Barely half of the 2,009 Americans who were surveyed trusted in even the most trusted news outlet which was the Wall Street Journal, understandably. 

This makes it no doubt that in 2016 the trust of Americans in mass media reached an all-time low of 32%. This is compared to the amount of trust placed in mass media post-Watergate scandal in 1976, which was a not so shocking 72% of Americans.

The trust in mass media from Americans has severely lacked in recent years, and it is believable that the blame can be from a plethora of circumstances, just like how trust was described earlier considering people and their ever differing lives. Is it shocking that local news is more trustworthy than internationals news? To some maybe, to others perhaps not at all.