Media trust hits new low

Very good they are thinking about addressing this, but they are still labouring under a few bits of their own misinformation.

Claiming it is a central part of someone's identity, and article of faith, and that they can't be argued out of it, is dead wrong. It is the result of misinformation being spread by the news media, refusal to retract incorrect articles, clear bias and manipulation. If that behavior stopped, over a long period of time trust would be regained.

They are correct that it isn't just the US, it is all across the Anglosphere. Just today:

1. In NZ at newshub an article claimed not that the evidence supporting use of Ivermectin in cases of COVID-19 wasn't compelling but that there "is no evidence that supports the use of [Ivermectin] in the treatment of COVID-19." I know that's a lie because I have a folder of scores of research papers on this topic.

2. Fake news about a Hospital in Oklahoma backed up by Ivermectin overdose patients. Not retracted. Amplified by Rachel Maddow.

3. Same newshub (and other outlets) posted about a backlash against David Seymour. That's true, but they took an ideological position against David Seymour. They could have taken an inverse ideological position arguing that David was fighting against institutional racism on behalf of underrepresented people in need that happen to not be Maori... or better yet remained neutral. My stomach turns every time I see this government use race as the determining factor in who gets special treatment, instead of "poverty" or "low vaccine uptake" or any other property... I don't argue this point for myself (I'm highly privileged) but for countless underprivileged of other races like Indonesian or Malaysian or Palestinean who need help but get turned away because they aren't Maori.

That's just today. This shit has been going on for years now.

At this point, most people will never again trust the media for the rest of their lives.

Maybe the title should read: The average media consumer becomes more news literate.

In the advent of social media being a megaphone and a news source nowadays, media organizations ceased to own the monopoly of news.

It doesn't help matters that old media is busy cannibalizing the very thing that built its brand: quality journalism.

Very common to see media organizations these days report government speech as facts. Investigative journalism is nothing but an old fable now.

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Couldn't agree more with your last sentence. Recently I had a discussion around that with my 12 year old about just that, in the end I compared online journalism to social media influencers. The latter do almost everything for likes, the former for clicks, because both equal revenue. This fast news cycle certainly doesn't help journalism in general. Throw in agendas and we end up where we are. Not that journalism can, or should, be unbiased. Journalism should be open about their particular biases, and definitely less aggressive and underhanded in transporting it. The US seems to be worse in that regard than other countries, this doesn't mean that it is a purely US problem.

The underlying issues with journalism also make it hard to fight back on Fake News allegations, sometimes the Fake News crowd, regardless of political leanings, actually does have a point.

I read that (worth it sort of) and there are a few takeaways, but for me the big one is realising that the author seems to think that there is "an answer" out there, that "everyone else" knows it and that he (the author) ought to be told it upfront. And any indication that people change their minds, get things wrong or otherwise screw up is an indication that people are not just lying but hiding the truth.

It took a while to realise this. Am glad I read it.