2016 proved that Americans drastically don’t trust two major establishments: the Electoral College and the mass media.
Mass media, which refers to the medium of communication used to reach a mass of people, faced heavy criticism, on both ends. In 1976, American trust in the media was at a whooping 72%. In Sept. 2016, a Gallup poll found that number declined, leaning in at a dismal 32%.
You, amongst others, may share the belief that throughout the years, the media lost their pull.
The question of the hour becomes: why? Why is a field committed to disseminating information so widely distrusted?
Half of the answer lies with President-elect Donald Trump, otherwise known as the orange bigot blamed for most of this year’s misfortune.
Besides single-handedly chastising outlets like CNN and NBC through his infamous Twitter account, Trump rekindled conservative values against the journalism field and journalists themselves. His supporters blindly followed. As a result, Republican trust in media drooped to a surprising 14%. This drop can be attributed to claims that Democrat Hillary Clinton, “received [a majority of] positive media attention.” According to the Pew Research Center, such feelings led Republicans to stray from ‘liberal’ news outlets to a more conservative Fox News. CNN and NBC were not the only targets of Trump’s insult dartboard, The New York Times was too.
On the other hand, 51% of Democrats believe the media “reports news fairly and accurately.” The same argument can be placed here, since outlets like CNN and NBC are dubbed as ‘liberal,’ it seems natural that they are so heavily trusted by Democrats.
Therefore, Trump played a ‘yuuuge’ part in dampening media trust in his constituents.
The other half of the answer lies on the other side of the teleprompter. Journalists often engage in flaming discourses on behalf of their outlets.
In reference to claims against debate moderators, Anderson Cooper, well-known CNN anchor, said on Oct. 29, “I think bias is an issue, it’s in the eyes of the beholder. Everybody sees it when it doesn’t seem to comport with their belief.”
Howie Burtz, host of Fox News’s “MediaBuzz” attributes media distrust to “a result of self-inflicted wounds [such as] bias, blunder, sensationalism and superficiality.”
“A lot of it is on us [journalists],” he said on Sept. 15.
This rise in reporter bias can be attributed to the rise in cable news advertising, according to Fortune. Advertisements have increased 15%, to approximately $2 billion. It is thus implied that a rise in funds led to a decline of facts, triggering the sharp decline in media reliability.
These statistics are frightening. As an aspiring journalist going into college, the evident decline in media reliability and opportunity leaves almost no room for us, the next in line. The next four years will evidently reshape both politics and journalism as we know it. It’s been a long time coming, all that’s left is to wait and see what 2017 brings for our nation and journalism.
