Fewer Americans Than Ever Before Trust The Mainstream Media

The death of conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh this week spawned a predictable flurry of news coverage about him that touched on all the big chapters of his three-decade career. He was a fire-breathing right-wing provocateur, we were reminded; a bigot; a smash-mouth; a GOP standard-bearer; an avatar of traditional conservatism who morphed into a champion of Donald Trump’s burn-it-all-down brand of politics; a peddler of disinformation and half-truths; a horrible human being; a loving husband; he was all that, and more, the news coverage told us.

What much of the reportage failed to spend much time on, however, is the mistrust of traditional, mainstream media that helped grease the skids of Limbaugh’s career in the first place. Which is why it must be noted, even as the man who led a talk radio revolution is now gone — his death happens to coincide with a moment when fewer people than ever trust traditional media, according to the results of a new survey.

For the first time, Edelman’s annual trust barometer, which it shared with Axios, revealed that fewer than half of all Americans acknowledge any kind of trust in the mainstream media. Fifty-six percent of Americans, for example, said they agreed with the following statement: “Journalists and reporters are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.”

The results go on to show that 59% of Americans said they agree with this statement: That “most news organizations are more concerned with supporting an ideology or political position than with informing the public.” And 61% of Americans think that “The media is not doing well at being objective and non-partisan.”

“El Rushbo” built his entire career out of an understanding of that reality. It’s hard not to read those new statistics and flash back to some of the highlights of his career, like the time in 2013 where he blasted journalists as “dangerous to the republic.” And in response to one particular news article that set him off during a radio broadcast, he railed against journalists thus: “We might want to start considering, at least talking about registering journalists, just like we have to register guns. Background checks and all of that. Because this is mental illness. This is bordering on delusion, this piece. It really is incredible… We ought to register these journalists.”

The deeper you look at this issue, though, you start to see the same pattern on both sides of the political divide. Too many news consumers start out with a world view, and either acquire or dismiss facts depending on whether or not they snap together like missing puzzle pieces in a jigsaw of the mind. Liberals railed at The New York Times
NYT
’ Washington correspondent Maggie Haberman for pretty much the entirety of the Trump presidency if she had a piece that dutifully reported some action he’d taken that didn’t find a way to also suggest that he was the devil incarnate.

Similarly, there’s a tendency among many right-leaning consumers of news to regard any updated story, containing new facts or a fuller picture emerging in the wake of an initial piece of breaking news, to be evidence of some kind of conspiratorial back-tracking. Example: The New York Times in recent days quietly updated the story it published more than a month ago now that included details about the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who it was originally reported was killed during the January 6 riots after being struck by a fire extinguisher.

His death quickly became one of many symbols that news outlets and prominent Democrats fixated on by why of (correctly) speaking out about how awful the insurrectionists’ actions were. Only … the original narrative surrounding his death may not actually told the correct story of how Sicknick died.

“New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police,” reads an update posted at the top of the Times’ original story. In a separate story from earlier this month, the Times reported: “One Capitol Police officer, Brian D. Sicknick, was killed, and investigators are increasingly focused on whether chemical irritants were a factor in his death, according to a senior law enforcement official.”

This is the kind of thing that sends conservatives into a rage, when original narratives get changed — because of the very prosaic, commonplace reason that new information emerges — which leaves them believing that reporters are somehow in cahoots with Democrats, grasping for whatever narrative will do harm to the other side.

Where does all this philosophical tribalism end, when it begins to impact sources of news that are supposed to be honest brokers of information? Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan has written that “our goal should go beyond merely putting truthful information in front of the public. We should also do our best to make sure it’s widely accepted.” New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, has talked about the need to, in the wake of the January 6 riots that were facilitated by some media outlets peddling misinformation, “figure out how we rein in our media environment, so you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation. AOC made those comments during an Instagram Live, adding that media literacy and the lack thereof “is a part of what happened here.”

Edelman’s trust barometer, meanwhile, also revealed the following: 61% of Trump voters acknowledged trusting the CEO of their employer. Less than half of that number said the trust government leaders (28%).

Coming in even lower, with the trust of just 21% of these respondents? Journalists.