“In case you haven’t noticed… journalism is in deep trouble. This is in large part because Americans have lost faith in journalists. According to Gallup, roughly two-thirds of Americans had a great deal of faith in the news media in 1970. Today, only 31% of Americans say the same — while 36% say they have no faith in the news media at all.
How can that trust be rebuilt? Are we destined to live in a world of different realities and alternative facts? Should the mainstream media apologize for all they have ignored or covered up or gotten wrong over the past few years?
To boil it all down: does real, honest journalism have a future in America?” — Bari Weiss, April 2025
It is indeed interesting where people get their news from — that is, if they’re still paying attention at all. The challenge, too, is that this thing that we call the “mainstream media,” as Weiss would attest, doesn’t really represent the mainstream nor does it capture the attention of most of country.
It is no longer simply assumed that NPR is trustworthy. Same for longtime standard newspapers such as The New York Times, New York Post and Washington Post, especially each of their opinion pages. ABC, CBS and NBC are regularly doubted. And the trustworthiness of cable ventures CNN, FOX News and MSNBC have long been in question.
So what makes them trustworthy? What determines whether a journalism outlet is a reliable source of news?
It’s not simply bias; in fact, some would say there is no such thing as unbiased news. As said by the frequented Intramuralist source All Sides, it is hidden media bias that “misleads, manipulates and divides us.” We would be wise, therefore, to learn how to spot it, rather than allow it to feed the narrative already building in our brains. Hence, we consider the following:
- Does the source distinguish between editorials and fact?
- When opinion is offered, is that clear? Do they say so?
- How well-sourced are their stories? Are they transparent about who their sources actually are?
- How much persuasive rhetoric do they use?
- Are they insulting of any?
- Are they prone to the use of sensationalism?
- Are they willing to report on a story in a way that’s different than everyone else?
- Have they acknowledged places where they were wrong and corrected their mistakes?
- Do they present full context?
- Are there news events they are unwilling to talk about?
As for me, my primary news is read — not watched. I read RealClearPolitics, All Sides and The Free Press routinely. I will also tune into Axios, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal.
From a podcast perspective, that’s where I will tune into podcasts with openly stated both right and left biases, with Bari Weiss’s “Honestly” being my current fave. Why?
Bari is smart, fair and witty woman. She’s incredibly discerning. She is a Jewish lesbian and former writer for both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. She resigned from the Times in 2020 after “constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views.” In her resignation letter she said that intellectual curiosity was now considered a “liability” for the paper, evidence of the evaporating trustworthiness.
One of the more insightful podcast episodes I listened to recently was when Weiss met with the founders of Axios, persons who were previously respectively employed by The Washington Post and Time. They are persons believed to be credible, meaning not hidden with their bias. Together they had a conversation about the increasing mistrust of the media.
Interestingly, they identified the following as what they believe to be the main factors as to why the media has taken such a credibility hit in the last decade: (1) the beginning of Twitter, in which groupthink was prominent and reporters began openly sharing their bias in full view… (2) the word policing that arose during the Covid years, with media leading the way in what we could/could not say… (3) the response to Donald Trump’s first election and the agendas in their succeeding coverage… and (4) the coverage of Joe Biden and his clear decline. Their point was that each of those aspects contributed to our current, collective mistrust of media.
Here’s wishing for more. It would just be nice to trust what we watch and read.
Respectfully…
AR