Trust Issues
Yes, the Media Still Matters
Journalism experts on the era of ‘fake news’ — and what lies ahead
The 2016 election made the public examine the media with newly critical eyes, for reasons valid (the press’ failure to capture Donald Trump supporters’ sentiments pre-election), propagandist (“fake news”) and overall disturbing (“Pizzagate”).
But Americans’ perceptions of media have been in a precarious state long before Trump was elected president. A 2017 Gallup poll showed that American trust in mass media has been steadily dwindling since 1999. With regular announcements of newspaper layoffs both large and small, major websites and alt-weeklies shuttering, and hard-news reporters being assigned tasks like creating slideshows and participating in comment sections, the idea of a robust journalistic workforce receiving the time and salary to rebuild the public’s trust seems like a noble pipe dream.
So why go to journalism school? How can we study media and learn to create it when news isn’t really news anymore?
We spoke with seven journalism and media professors from a range of journalism programs about how training trustworthy future journalists has — and hasn’t — changed since the 2016 election.
