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Impulsive, fearful, and not honest. All reasons why for the third year in a row more Americans (36%) have no trust in the media than those who do (31%). It’s more than just a Getty poll, many media insiders feel the same way, including Contributing Editor at The Free Press, Uri Berliner. “There are certain subjects that I think the media was quite fearful to cover and didn’t do honestly and I think [they have] paid a price for it,” the former NPR Business Editor said.
Berliner started as a newspaper reporter on Long Island’s east end, “I covered the cops and the zoning board and fights over fishing rights and things like that and I loved it. I took photographs and sometimes even went to the printing plant and brought the papers back. I wrote headlines, copy edited, covered sports. I did everything.”
One characteristic learned in these formative years is something Berliner has carried through his entire career. “I remember covering a school board meeting and it was on a very controversial subject, and these are open meetings,” he said. “But the head of the school board was whispering to one of the other school board members. So, I’m sitting there in the first row, and I can’t hear a word they’re saying.
“So, I walked up to them and stuck my ear in there and said ‘What? What are you saying? Because this is an open meeting you can’t hide this from me.’ It’s that kind of attitude that is very helpful. Whether you’re covering a school board meeting or Congress or anything else.”
Later, the tenacious Berliner moved to the west coast where he worked for papers in San Diego and Santa Barbara. A short time later, in 1999, Berliner made the jump to radio. “I loved radio as a kid, I just loved it,” he said. “I had a little transistor radio, and I would take it to bed with me like a lot of people did and listen to sports, but also like the earliest kinds of conversation talk shows. I just loved it.”
Berliner noted of the medium, “It’s so personal and so immediate. So, when I had a chance to get a job at NPR, which I had always listened to, I jumped at it and moved from California to D.C.”
For 25 years he grew with NPR before he felt the outlet (along with other media agencies) had lost America’s trust. “There was a sense of becoming part of the resistance to [President Trump]. Dealing with him as if he were somehow completely different than any other president and needed to be held to a completely different standard. It was something that happened throughout the media. My own experience, of course, was at NPR.”
Today, one of the topics Berliner believes the media hasn’t covered honestly is the mental decline of President Biden. “As early as Biden’s first successful run in 2020, you could tell that he was slowing down a bit,” he said. “I think everybody knew that he wasn’t as quick on his feet as he was as a younger man. Then throughout his presidency, I think a regular person could see the stumbles, the pauses, the inability to complete thoughts and sentences. It was something that I think ordinary people talked about but for some reason it wasn’t reported in the media, and it all came crashing down in that debate.”
This culmination of events has led us to having Vice President Harris as an ‘accidental candidate’ on the democratic ticket. However, the esteemed editor believes the media is still not doing their job. “It’s all over the place,” said Berliner. “I mean the problem, from my perspective, is both are such deeply flawed candidates. Trump is so erratic and unpredictable and he’s so narcissistic and is given to lying. Vice President Harris has sort of turned her back on her previous positions, almost every single one of them. She also has trouble completing clear thoughts. You can listen to her for minutes at a time and don’t really understand what she’s saying or what she believes in.”
Berliner believes, “For a lot of Americans, this is not a great choice.” While most, but not all of, the coverage has been “pretty poor,” according to Berliner, there’s a lot the media could be doing to do a better job reporting on. “With Trump, so much attention goes to his outbursts rather than what are actually his ideas,” Berliner said. “I think you could say this for both of them. What would a second Trump presidency look like? Aside from the fact that he’s unpredictable, I don’t think there’s been much scrutiny on his economic plan, the impact of his tariffs, or what his plans would do for the deficit.”
As for Harris, Berliner believes the media needs to be covering her the exact same way. “Her economic ideas, her ideas on housing, but also just the totally incoherence on foreign policy. We don’t know how she would handle Israel in the Middle East. We don’t really know what she would do with the threat from China because she’s so vague in everything she says. So, I think we have these enormous stakes because the world has become a much more dangerous place. We have huge economic challenges. The concerns about unfettered immigration are real. I think there are ways to address it that we don’t really know what the specifics are from either of the candidates.”
For voters to get a good sense of both candidates, Berliner believes it’s not neutral news people need but outlets who have, “A fierce sense of independence. [Meaning,] the idea that you need to get over as much as possible, your own priors, your own beliefs and sort of approach each story with curiosity rather than deciding in advance what your take is.”
The veteran journalist noted, there used to be a time where the story was the boss. Perhaps it’s time to get back to this idea. “So many of those stories are like, that’s a great story,” he said. “You find out about some scandal. It didn’t matter if it was Democrat or Republican or left or right. You just go. You find out, you got a tip, you dig, and you uncover a scandal, or you do some great reporting that uncovers something and now it’s more become like is this going to reflect well or badly on our side? But I just love that old school way of doing things, which is like it’s all about the story.”
For those looking to follow in Berliner’s accomplished footsteps, he suggests focus on your writing. “I still think writing is very important, for a number of reasons,” he said. “Writing stories often will endure more than videos or podcasts. Also, writing helps clarify your thinking. So, if you write well, you can think better, and I think it’s the foundation for a lot of journalism.”
As you continue to grow in the industry, Berliner suggests having knowledge on a specific subject is helpful. “If you find something that you’re good at or you’re interested in, or maybe you just wind up there. It could be science, developments in AI, business, economics, whatever. It helps to have a body of knowledge that you can lean on and that you develop sources in.”
Most importantly, standing out in the crowded media field does not mean you become “A career contrarian. Step back and say are they really doing it right or is there another way to get into this story? It’s not always easy because [sometimes] there’s a consensus [which] develops on a story or an angle. But I think taking yourself outside of the media consensus can be very helpful.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
