Pew Research Institute released not one but two new polls this week, and media outlets should be embarrassed. The first poll claims nine-in-ten adults in the U.S. believe the news they are seeing is inaccurate. The second says trust in the media has declined since the beginning of the year.
This is not the polling we should be reading ahead of next week’s election. There are 145 state, local, special, and recall elections on Tuesday, November 4, according to Ballotpedia, with another 35 happening between November 15 and December 30. That is 180 elections across every size market that we, the media, are not just getting wrong but diminishing our own value.
Of the Americans who believe the news they are seeing is inaccurate, 42% say it happens extremely often or often. For those outlets continuing the big push on their digital platforms, your performance is worse. Pew’s data shows 43% of Americans who get their news from digital devices encounter inaccurate news more often. Disgraceful.
You should not be pushing to be the first, best, or most active across digital. Instead, be the most accurate. I get it: the more you post, the more you will appear on your viewers’ feeds. But the moment you retract, mislead, or hoodwink your audience, the more likely they are to use your work against you (cough, cough—see last week’s column for a prime example of this).
We, the media, are only twisting our self-inflicted dagger more. The research institute wrote, “There is a strong connection between how often Americans say they come across inaccurate news and how difficult they think it is to determine what is true. Those who report often encountering inaccurate news are more likely than those who rarely or never do to say it’s hard to know what is true (59% vs. 31%).”
If everything is inaccurate, then there is no truth. If there is no truth, then our job as journalists is a sham. It’s an embarrassment to read, “51% [of those polled] say they generally find it difficult to determine what’s true and what’s not when they get news.”
Which brings us to Pew’s second poll: Trust in the media is down 11% since March of this year. This week’s data revealed 52% of adults have a lot or some trust in national media outlets reporting, which sounds great until you break it down by age.
Generation Z and below trust the national media only 1% more than social media (51% to 50%, respectively). This is a scary thought when combined with the aforementioned 43% of Americans who get their news from digital devices and encounter inaccurate news more. It begs the question: does Gen Z have the ability to identify inaccurate news, or has growing up with an iPad in their face hindered this ability? Pew, I’ll wait for that poll.
Now wait, I know what you are thinking: comparing Gen Z data to all Americans is misleading. You’re right, it is. If you didn’t pick up on that purposeful manipulation of data, you are part of the problem as to why trust in the media is so low. What’s worse are the people who do this on purpose, as it misleads their audience. (Please know I’m not trying to mislead you; I’m giving you an example of what not to do and what to look out for in bad reporting.)
While the data is broken down in several ways (generations, political party, etc.), there is one piece of good news for the media. According to Pew, “Trust in local news organizations remains higher than trust in national news organizations among Americans of all ages.”
Your platform does not matter. Your market does not matter. What channel number you have or radio signal you broadcast on does not matter. The only value media companies have is trust. You can spend all the money in the world, but it will not bring you the viewers’ trust.
Trust is something a lot of my former local news colleagues think about more than my national news associates. Personally, I believe this is because the suits are a lot closer to the actual production of the show in national news versus local. Suits are often so focused on the numbers (budgets, viewership, etc.) they forget the most important numbers: trust. Does your audience trust you to be accurate, unbiased, and, most importantly, truthful?
Trust is the most important (and at some outlets, most underrated) currency in media. That is what gives any outlet—or independent journalist—their value. Right now, across media, we are failing. Trust in the media is down 20 points since Pew began asking this question in 2016. We’ve had nearly 10 years to make things right. It is time to start doing better.
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Krystina Alarcon Carroll contributes features and columns 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.
All the MSM has to do is get over their TDS.