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Who do you trust for the news and information?
In recent years, the Pew organization has asked Americans how much they trust information they receive from state or local news outlets and on social media. The trends are not surprising, especially the gap between Democrats and Republicans, given the Trump effect.
But these trends are nonetheless alarming as we perhaps enter a post-Trump era and perhaps a post-trust or post-“truth” era.
Everyone, of course, has the right to decide who to trust with news and information. A generation ago, in what you might call the Walter Cronkite it’s like that Around this time, most Americans said they trusted the network’s news shows with their iconic presenters and their local newspapers to tell them the truth about the daily news. Clearly, that trust has waned, even as more and more sources of news and information have emerged. And, just as obviously, a large trust gap has arisen between partisan and ideological lines, especially after the reign of a deeply divided president who renamed the news media “fake news.”
The Pew poll found that between 2016 and June 2021, when the most recent sample was surveyed, the portion of all adults who reported having “a lot” or at least “some” trust in information from agencies national press has dropped. 76 to 58 percent. In itself, this is worrying, not only for journalists but for anyone who thinks that the level of such trust is important for the proper functioning of a democracy.
But the breakdown by party is more worrying. Of course, you saw it coming, but the drop in confidence in national news outlets has plummeted much more among Republicans than among Democrats.
Specifically, among Republican respondents to the Pew poll, the proportion who expressed “some” or “a lot” of confidence in information reported by national news agencies fell from 70% in 2016, the year of the report. emergence of Donald Trump as a national political figure, at 35% in 2021.
It also fell among Democrats (and Democrats), but much less, from 83 to 74 percent, according to the Pew poll.
In the aftermath of the Trump era, that leaves us with a huge gap between Democrats, of whom 74% have at least some confidence in what they read, watch and hear from the media, and Republicans, of whom only 35% can muster “some” confidence.
(By the way, the numbers were down, but much more stable, when respondents were asked separately about local news outlets. And they were down, but only slightly, among Democrats and Republicans, when respondents were asked separately. Respondents were asked about their level of trust in the information they receive through local media. Although the decline was smaller, the level of trust in information from social media was much lower than that from social media. information in all surveys.)
Do what you want with it. For me, a longtime news scribbler, I find this sad but not surprising. I still believe in the importance of citizens in a democratic society to follow public affairs through one form of media, and preferably several. I have long understood the power of “selective perception” and “confirmation bias” in the way people consume and understand new information.
I would still like to believe, even if it’s harder than ever, that people can be open-minded enough to take in new information and adjust their big picture to adapt to it, either gradually or marginally. But selective perception and confirmation bias are powerful. It takes effort to read, watch, or listen with an open mind to information that contradicts one’s existing views.
But, of course, that’s even harder to do in the new “news” system in which it’s easy to ignore sources that might cause you to rethink long-established views and just bathe in it. in the deep waters of “confirmation bias.”
I am old and will soon drop my burden of purveyor of news and opinions. I am well aware of the many flaws in the old system, what we called the news reporting objectivity model. But I’m quite worried about the impact on our democracy of the new model, in which it’s so much easier to regularly bathe in the blissful certainty of confirmation bias.
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