Opinion | If you say “I don’t trust the media,” I don’t trust you

Luca Evans, Managing Editor

Over the past few years, with the rise of the term “fake news,” American trust in journalism has declined to all-time lows. It’s shocking, really. The fact that Rotten Tomatoes reported a 78% approval rating for “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” but there are only 40% who approve and trust the mass media is a travesty.

Yet, if you’re one of those 60% who don’t trust “the media,” I’d kindly argue the problem isn’t with “the media” – it’s with you. Quite specifically, you’re being lazy. 

I get it, though; it’s easier to dismiss any story you see and blame this abstract concept of “the media” for the root of all American problems than to take a solid three minutes to double-check the reported facts in a news story. 

I put “the media” in quotation marks because people who refer to “the media” are hardly ever referring to the entire sphere of American journalism as a whole. They’re referring to high-profile networks such as CNN, Fox News or MSNBC. 

I constantly see people on both sides of the political spectrum repost headlines on Twitter asking, “Why isn’t the media talking about this?” However, in that very post, they are literally quote-tweeting stories from a journalist or news source. The irony. 

News corporations – let’s focus on CNN and Fox News – are inherently biased because they are corporations. They want to make money. They get that through ratings by appealing, however slightly, to their viewership base (generally left-leaning for CNN, right-leaning for Fox). Thus, much of their programming will be taken up by split screen graphics and talking heads and obviously pointed language, because watching people argue about politics is what boosts ratings and therefore drives revenue. 

However, the majority of journalists working at high-profile news organizations don’t fabricate information. There’s generally an origin for every statistic and fact reported. Bias filters in through the inclusion and exclusion of specific statistics or facts – that’s where the reader has to take some perspective, look at the source they’re taking this from and cross-reference facts elsewhere.

The seeming lack of objectively reported information is largely due to the eruption of digital media. Sources like One America News Network that have sprung up in the past few years with the boom of social media – as well as President Donald Trump’s brainwashing of his followers to label every single negative story about him as “fake news” – actively contribute to clearly biased and inaccurate reporting. With the amount of misinformation being constantly shared around the digital sphere, many users aren’t sure where to turn for accurate information. It’s no wonder that trust in the media has steadily declined from the era when print newspapers and radio were the only sources of news Americans could turn to. Too many are getting their primary source of information from their cousin Phil on Facebook. 

The most trustworthy sources are often local news organizations. They obtain viewership or readership based on serving their community alone, and thereby draw revenue through their individual markets – an audience demographic that’s not denoted by political affiliation, just regional. Thus, they’ll tend to report information much more accurately, in order to attract all possible viewers or readers. 

Additionally, local news journalists work extremely hard to apply national topics to a local level, often breaking down larger nationwide stories – for instance, COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement, the homelessness crisis – so their community can more easily relate. If you want accurate information, download the application of your local NBC, Fox or CBS news outlets and follow their individual journalists on social media. 

At the end of the day, however, what most of the population who aren’t journalists don’t realize is that we’re human. We carry our own individual perspectives, and much like any other person, our personal experiences shape our worldviews. 

Not all news stories will be truly unbiased, because everything is seen through the eye of a journalist and the research and information they gather from interviewees. You have to question what we do, put yourself in our shoes and try to see as objectively as possible. 

But don’t deny our work because you’ve bought into this concept that “the media'' is trying to intentionally feed the public misinformation. Don’t deny our work because it’s easier to mindlessly denounce something that goes against your personal beliefs, especially without bothering to check the information. You’re smarter than that. 

If you say “I don’t trust the media,” I don’t trust you.