Last week, I went over why some Americans are refusing to get vaccinated against COVID19, despite the delta variant rising and risking the health and lives of so many Americans, along with studies showing those vaccinated are less likely to be hospitalized or even die of COVID19. Today, I will go over how the refusal to get vaccinated is often linked to distrust in the news media (there are other reasons too, but this what I am focusing on now).
So, distrust in the media. We hear a lot about that these days, and we’ve been hearing it for years. What started as a whisper became loud shouting by 2016 when half of Americans voters rallied around and voted for Donald Trump as president of United States. Many who didn’t vote for Trump were shocked to see so many Americans not only support Trump, but echo what he said about the news media, most especially the term, “fake news”. Some Americans blamed the right-wing news media for brainwashing, or at least convincing, that the liberal news media was out of touch with the average American. Or worse, trying to brainwash them into having a liberal mindset.
But are either of these accusations the case? First off, the brainwashing part, as I mentioned before, cannot be true, so let’s pass on that. Now, the part about the liberal news media being out of touch with the average American. There may be a lot of truth to that, for a number of reasons. Let’s take a look.
Now, for what it is worth, there has been quite a few times the news media made false news reports. I would say the one that often comes to mind would be all the news outlets fawning over the WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in Iraq, hence why we needed to invade that country and overthrow its dictator, Saddam Hussein. As we all know, there never were any WMDs, invading Iraq was a huge mistake that practically destroyed an entire country, and killed thousands of Iraqis for no reason, and let’s not forget the U.S. troops who either died or were severely wounded, also for no reason.
Anyway, the news media on both sides reported heavily on the WMDs, and that was a huge blow to journalism since this is an industry that is supposed to dig for truth and question authorities. The consequences for all this poor journalism have been something else.
Then comes the favoritism the left-wing news media had for Barack Obama, both when he was running for President in 2008 and when he won that same year. He was really hyped up back then - honestly, he was - and that likely added fuel to the right-wing news media which was hell-bent on reporting on conspiracy theories about Obama. And then comes the Trump presidency where we saw the opposite - the right-wing news media hyping him up and the left-wing news media hell-bent on making him look bad (granted, they had good reason to do so, but they made it far too obvious which hurt them).
But here’s another thing to focus on: if Americans distrust the news media, it could be largely linked to how much they trust the government and other institutions that normally hold our country and society together. It is no secret that many Americans are increasingly distrustful of the federal government, and are choosing to rely on themselves than the powers-that-be to take care of the wellbeing of the country. A 2018 study shows that worldwide, many people are losing trust in both their government and their news media. The two go hand-in-hand. One of the reasons why these people - noticeably those in more democratic countries - are losing faith in their news is because they are overly focused on attracting an audience (66%), overly focused on breaking news (65%), and overly focused on politics (59%).
I’ve mentioned before that sensationalism in news hurts trust in the news media, and that cable news behaving more like entertainment is making journalism look bad. Maybe if the news media got its act together and fixed these two problems, than trust in the news media will arise. Or maybe I’m being too optimistic because there are so many factors in the lack of trust in the news media. Let’s not forget the United States is a large country with millions of people with millions of different lives. Perhaps the overt focus on politicians rather than on the everyday people who live in this country, many of whom are struggling, is why so many Americans distrust and even despise the news media.
How can this be fixed? I’ll give my two cents next week.
Until then, feel free to discuss this week’s topic in the comments section below:
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