Trust: The Silent Killer of News
Image courtesy of Pew Research Center
Media has been around for as long as the birth of America. It has always held a major role in informing society. But, the community it serves continues to lose trust in it. Regaining audience trust is crucial to keeping journalism alive, with most journalists taking steps to produce quality news but it is important to know when some don't.
“I don't want to put anything that's wrong out there,” said Jeffrey McClure, a multimedia journalist at Northern News Now. “Luckily I just worked with enough competent people that have been doing it for years… so every night I have to get my stuff checked by Dan [Wolfe] and Laura Lee, who like Dan has been at Duluth for nine years and is an Emmy winning journalist.”
McClure is a local evening reporter and has worked within the media industry since his college years. Throughout his time in journalism he has seen how much stories are washed until they are clean and truthful. At a local level, McClure and his colleagues take many steps to build trust with their viewers across Duluth, the Iron Range, Northwest Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan.
“They [Duluth News Tribune] do the Duluth best of the best and they have, like, the community vote on all those things. And KBJR has won the best news station for three years in a row,” McClure said.
The audience Northern News Now serves continues to trust them. However, this can't be said for how many other Amercians view their primary news source.
A Gallup Study found that only 31% of Amercians expressed having a great deal or fair amount of confidence that the news would be reported fairly and accurately. This is about 68% to 72% lower than it was in the 1970s.
As trust goes down, so does consumerism. Pew Research data shows that traction to newspapers websites, TV viewership, digital subscriptions and print circulations are declining. Among all these outlets, TV and local news are considered to be the most trusted by most Americans.
“Local news is normally… really good, like you can trust local news because more than likely they're not going to try to put a bad rap on the place that they live,” said McClure. “Once you get into the bigger news, it's just like getting those ones that you trust and everyone has different ones because they have different opinions and things.”
Pew Research reports 85% of US adults say local news is important to the wellbeing of their community. Will future generations uphold this morale?
Compared to older generations, Gen Z consumes news the least, but the most on social media. Social Media is the least trusted news platform with the most misinformation. This creates a complicated dynamic on how future generations will consume and trust media.
Finding a trusted news source and remaining media literate, are crucial to ingesting truthful information.
To find a news source credible, the News Literacy Project recommended these five steps when evaluating a source: do background research on the news source, read through their ethical guidelines and standards, check for transparency, examine how errors are corrected and read a few articles to understand their news coverage.
However, following these steps can be tricky when news is constantly thrown in faces through social media.
“The people that say the most outlandish things end up getting the most views,”McClure said.
News is more likely to be sensationalised on social media in order to gain traction. Remaining media literate on social media is important and it can be as easy as doing independent research on the topic.
“Your own due diligence, kind of like if you think something's fishy, you can always look it up and try to learn more,” said McClure.
The Duke Reporter’s Lab Organization has a website of global fact checking sites. The site is free to use to find fact checking sites internationally. As of Dec. 3, 2024, the lab released a new tool, MediaVault.
The tool allows for misinformation in social media posts to be identified quicker without boosting the original creator. Media Vault is free online, with registration, for working journalists.
Doing further research individually can further one’s understanding on the topic. Finding similarities on how stories are reported can help get closer to the truth. In fact, ethical journalists take these steps everyday.
“One of my coworkers always tells me like that story that you have that day, you gotta know the back of your hand,” said McClure. “So as long as you do that extra work to make sure that you understand it and are doing it in a respectful way, you'll totally be fine.”
Media tends to be more bias on national platforms, which might be a reason why many Americans show favoritism towards their local sources.
The Knight Foundation paired up with Gallup in 2019 to conduct a study on media trust. According to their findings, “Americans still believe local news outlets are doing many things right, and the study confirms that. Six in 10 Americans believe local news organizations are accomplishing most of the key tasks of informing communities. And local journalists are seen as more caring (36%), trustworthy (29%) and neutral or unbiased (23%).”
McClure intends to continue neutrality at his own local news station and believes it's possible for others to do so as well.
“I think it's definitely possible if you strive to be neutral… and you take in the information that you need, you'll be fine,” McClure said.
Working journalists can be prosecuted for false statements, so many work hard to avoid the repercussions. Defamation, libel and slander laws are set in place to keep material as truthful as possible. Mistakes happen, and most take the steps to avoid them.
Viewers who find a trusted news source, remain vigilant, might see a positive change in their relationship with the media.
For as long as time, the media has been used as a way to inform the public and bring community together. Regaining their audience’s trust is vital to repair their broken relationship and for the future of news.