Here are important questions for all Americans to consider: How can we have a sustainable democratic republic without a well-informed public? And how can we have a well-informed public if they do not trust the news media?
There is no question that the public has lost confidence in the news media in America. The Gallup organization does an annual poll on trust in U.S. institutions. Back in the 1970s, trust in news at times exceeded 70%. In the Gallup poll just released this October, trust in the news media dropped to an all-time low. Only 28% of Americans have a “great deal or a fair amount of trust” in news reporting.
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Back in the 1970s, when Walter Cronkite was perhaps the most trusted man in America, he gave the news objectively; he never offered his own opinions. Today there is way too much opinion in news reporting. This was verified when Gallup, with the help of the Knight Foundation, interviewed 20,000 Americans and released a report in 2020.
That study found that 46% of Americans see a great deal of political bias in news coverage and another 37% see a fair amount of bias. Almost 70% said they see bias as a major problem.
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In 2021, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University did 92,000 interviews in 46 countries. Responding to the question “Do you trust the news media in your country?” Finland was the highest at 65%. The United States was dead last at 29%.
To borrow a famous Texas phrase, “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” But it’s not just Houston; it’s all of America.
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Some argue that people don’t want objective news anymore, they just want their own biases confirmed. That is true for a minority of Americans, but not for the majority. When Reuters did a poll of 80,000 people in 40 countries in 2020, they asked: Do you want to get your news from an organization with no particular point of view, one that confirms your point of view, or one that challenges your point of view?” Fully 60% of respondents wanted news from an organization with no particular point of view. The majority of news consumers want impartial, objective news, but many wonder where they can get it.
Instead of blaming the public, the news industry needs to reexamine itself. A 2023 report by the Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University asked editors around the country how they felt about objectivity as a news standard. Many said objectivity needed replacing.
“The journalist’s job is truth, not objectivity,” said Neil Barsky, founder of The Marshall Project.
Stephen Engelberg, editor-in-chief at ProPublica, said, “Objectivity is not even possible. … I don’t even know what it means.”
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It seems that some editors don’t like what the public wants.
While the lack of trust has accelerated, it’s not unprecedented. In the late 19th century, newspapers often aligned themselves with political parties. That’s why you still see the vestiges of that era in mastheads like the Tallahassee Democrat or The Republican in Springfield, Mass.
Then an entrepreneurial newspaper owner from Chattanooga, Tenn., Adolph Ochs, came to New York and got control of The New York Times, which was in receivership. He confronted lots of problems with yellow journalism, sensationalism and partisanship rampant in the press. He came up with an editorial strategy which was also a great business strategy. Rather than aligning himself politically one way or the other, he decided his newspaper would be independent. He published one of the great phrases in American journalism: “…to give the news impartially, without fear or favor…”
That phrase from almost 130 years ago could be the key to rebuilding trust in news reporting today in America.
With so much misinformation and disinformation online today, we need the traditional news media to go back to its traditional values, not just by providing impartial news for the sake of their survival, but for the future of our democratic republic.
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Walter Hussman Jr., was publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and its predecessor, for 48 years. He is currently chairman of the Center for Integrity in News Reporting.
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