Media Trustworthiness

It is too easy to say that in recent times people do not trust the media. This trend has been happening for decades, and there are several reasons as to why. Firstly, the media are a very easy target for criticism because the media itself - like many institutions - only gets attention when it fails in something. Much like road workers only being the topic of conversation when they fail to fix things that we use regularly, the media only seems to talk about itself when it gets key facts wrong, or reports on events before details are known, things of this sort. However, this it understandable that the media acts as it does, largely due to the intense competition not just between conventional media - radio, television - and social media to put out information and news at an ever-faster rate, but also due to competition between separate conventional media outlets themselves. For example, in reporting the Charleston church shooting, Fox News reported that the killing may have been motivated for religious reasons, and on the surface this makes sense. If one had seen no coverage to the contrary, this is a logical assessment - the shooting took place in the church afteral - however this was simply an incorrect assumption made by a member of the Fox News team in the effort to explain why a shooting would take place in the first place, a question many viewers want answered as soon as possible. Of course, investigations uncovered that the killing was motivated by racial hatred, however the fact remains that the media is in a never-ending fight to release information ASAP, and this leads to misinformation spreading just as quickly as fact, thus discrediting the media as a whole.

Further, it has become increasingly difficult, or in some cases too bothersome, to fact-check the news we read. In writing this article I have thus far included three references to sources that I judged important in backing up claims and information I am presenting. None of these sources was the first result of a Google search, and I had to look through a surprising number of articles - each of which boasting an extreme confidence in whatever matter I was looking into - in order to find somewhat trustworthy information. This is a process that has in many cases become simply too difficult to do prior to releasing information, and slows down the process greatly. Consumer-side, naturally people greatly want to be around those who they have something in common with, and reinforce our viewpoints. However, this is not an intellectually stimulating way of looking though information. If each of us closes our perspective to information that disagrees with us, then conversation simply goes away. The willingness to discuss matters - or in some cases simply admit one is wrong - comes with a a basic human respect that seems to be losing its place in our lives. But I digress, that point has been made a hundred times already. 

The fact of the matter is that news services provide an invaluable service to the public, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the media as a whole to do its job. Many news outlets rely on smaller sources of news for citations and information, for example local newspapers. This institution as well has come under major fire as time has gone by, and these small companies have become unable to turn a profit on their work, and eventually close. The Newspaper Death Watch keeps tabs on newspapers that have closed over time and provides some insight as to why in individual cases. For example Pittsburgh Tribune-Review closed recently, laying off over 100 employees, yet 'maintaining an online-only edition.' This is an important issue to face in the country because facts are not always profitable in this climate of business, and if this is the case, then newspapers will continue to close, leaving larger media outlets a shrinking pool of sources from which to report, leaving us with a media that reports more and more on what gets people to view their articles - not simply important information.