News Media Skepticism Reaches All-Time Low

It’s interesting to observe the role that news media plays in our modern society. Throughout this course, we have learned about the various media eras and the changing ways in which people have regarded news sources over time. Today, we are in the midst of the fragmented media era, with new technology like online journalism and blogging becoming increasingly widespread. Although this has led to an increased availability and diversification of news--from video bloggers responding to political policies to Twitter accounts from major news sources like CNN--the fragmented media era may ultimately be contributing to the deterioration of trust in news media. 


A few months ago, the New York Times reported that trust in news media had reached a new low. Among the 1,506 people interviewed by the Pew Research Center, 63 percent said that news articles were often inaccurate. Although its no secret that trust in the media’s dependability has fluctuated since the 1980s, these recent numbers show a big increase in distrust of the overall news industry. In 2007, 39 percent of interviewed Americans said that the media typically tends to “get the facts straight,” compared to a low 29 percent today. 


Interestingly enough, many of cited a lack of neutrality as their primary cause of distrust in the media. 74 percent said that news sources favor one political side in their reporting on current issues, with their biases stemming from an influence by powerful groups or interests. This statement is reminiscent of the themes of the partisan media era that lasted through the mid 19th-century. While this time period was characterized by party ownership or editorial control of newspapers, it resulted in a limited spread of knowledge and hyper-partisanship in media coverage. This control of reported news correlates with the limitation of truly unbiased news in our modern media era. Although our newspapers may not be explicitly owned by political parties, many owners of publishing companies and television networks have strong political affiliations that certainly color their portrayal and interpretation of current events. The article also specified that while negative opinion has grown among both Democratic and Republican parties since 2007, there has been a more significant increase in skepticism among Democrats. Not surprisingly, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to view CNN and MSNBC favorably, while Fox News was seen much more positively by Republicans than Democrats. This divide has always been typical, since Fox News has a reputation for being more conservative and politically biased than other networks. 


I find it surprising that the percentage of Democrats calling the media untrustworthy has increased so much over the last two years. Factors like the recent, heated presidential campaign may have originally been contributing factors, but President Obama’s fixed role in the news seems like it would have a healing effect on Democratic nonbelievers. Whatever the cause, distrust in the commercial news media will surely contribute to the increased importance of news spread through blogs and raw materials like video and photographic coverage of events. 


-Sarah