Mainstream media isn’t what it used to be. At least, that seems to be what this election cycle has revealed. Distrust in the media has sunk to new lows. According to a Gallup poll, only 32 percent of Americans hold at least a fair amount of trust and confidence in the media, while a mere 14 percent of Republicans share this assurance.
This is the lowest it has been since Gallup began collecting this data in 1972.
The first logical reason for the stark disparity between Republicans and Democrats can be attributed to President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign consistently denouncing the media’s fairness. But it goes further than this. Americans’ trust in mass media typically declines during an election year, as it fell in 2004 and 2008.
In a polarizing election, particularly this one, different media outlets play to their partisanship. It is obvious. Throughout the election, when I turned on Fox News and CNN, there were two very different narratives interpreting similar facts. Everyone had an agenda, especially when so much was on the line for their preferred candidate.
On Monday, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill died from her battle with uterine cancer. She worked for The Washington Post, The New York Times and NBC and moderated two Vice Presidential debates. More importantly, she was a pioneer — an African-American woman in journalism who paved the way in the late 1970s when newspapers were predominantly filled with white men. Ifill’s colleagues knew her to ask the tough questions and not let any person of power off the hook. It is an unfortunate coincidence that when media distrust is at an all-time high, such an important figure passes away.
Perhaps now that the election is over, journalists can reflect and pinpoint the problem. Nicholas Kristof, an opinion writer for The New York Times, asserts that the issue is twofold. For one, a number of alt-right websites today disseminate unequivocally false journalism, saying things such as President Obama is plotting for a third term to be president. This propaganda tool could be one of the reasons only 44 percent of Republicans accept that Obama was born in the United States. These websites, like Breitbart, were originally a conservative alternative to, but have slowly bled into, the mainstream media.
Another issue is that mainstream media has progressively become too comfortable investigating the cultural climate among the elites while neglecting everyday working Americans. Many are out of touch, and the unexpected result of the election attests to that.
As Kristof said, “one way in which we’re disconnected is that we don’t hear about or respond to these falsehoods in the alt-right orbit … when Americans come to believe lies such as the pope endorsed Trump, or that Barack and Michelle Obama unendorsed Clinton, those are assaults on our political system and we should challenge them.” Only if the media’s priorities are changed to engage with average American citizens can these types of lies rightfully be debunked. It will not happen overnight, but it needs to be addressed immediately.
Ezra Solway is a senior English major. He can be reached at esolway@terpmail.umd.edu.
