Trust is not served on a silver platter

 Claire Del Vita

cd750919@ohio.edu

With growing distrust in the media and the persistent rhetoric that it is all "fake news", it makes entering the field for a student journalist extremely daunting. People constantly critique my career choice, scoffing especially when they hear that I am a political science minor. After all, who would want to go into political journalism in the time of Donald Trump and Joe Biden? When the right and left cannot seem to agree on anything and all hope seems lost, but this is what I love to do and it is why there is an intense need for journalists to fine-tune the way they perceive ethics.

Source: How Fake News Penetrated Politics

Being ethical is not a straightforward concept. One may think that they are acting in the best interest of themselves while also considering the feelings of others when in reality they are causing more harm than good. For many, ethics are based on good and bad or right and wrong. However, as we read in "Moral Reasoning for Journalists" by Steven Knowlton and Bill Reader, it is best to base your choices on reasoning, considering the pros and cons of an action, and then deciding if you are being ethical or not after the proper amount of thought has been given. Decisions in the media and other sectors that you have put little thought into, if any, may often be the very ones that bite you in the butt. As explained in the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics, "Ethical journalism means taking responsibility for one's work and explaining one's decisions to the public." While your last resort when writing an article should be having to explain why you took a certain path with your decisions, you must do it with full transparency and honesty. When we reevaluate our ethical principles, we will be able to mend the distrust between journalists and their audience.

As we discussed in class, a major catalyst for the distrust in the media is the growing gap between the right and the left. It has been a common trend that liberals find most news organizations to be trustworthy and sharing straight facts, while conservatives see the media as a weapon of mass liberal destruction. A study by the Pew Research Center found that "More Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents trust than distrust most of the 30 outlets in the study, but the reverse is true among Republicans and GOP leaners." The media outlets in question ranged from what are considered to be more biased sources like FOX News and CNN to Politico and The Wall Street Journal. What surprised me the most about the study was that FOX is considered the most equally trusted and distrusted news outlet based on the study's ratio. To me, this suggests that while political bias plays a large role in how Americans view the media, we can still gain trust despite that. Whether your audience tends to lean more towards the left or the right, you can maintain an equal amount of trust on both sides if you work keeps ethics at the forefront.

If journalists focus more time on building their brand around ethics, then we can regain the trust that has been lacking. It will take time and effort, and it is not a task that one person can undertake alone. From the media executives running news companies to the journalists telling stories to the editors and behind-the-scenes staff, everyone must play their part equally for change to be made. After all, trust is not served on a silver platter.