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Media trust hits new low

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81–90 of 205 posts

Re: Media trust hits new low

#81

Trust in government is even lower - hovering at around 24%. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/05/17/public-trust...

This is the biggest problem of all, and it needs to be tackled before we can build trust in anything else.

People need to first take responsibility for the governments they elect. Then they need feel like "We the people" are in charge. Not some nefarious organization that we have no power over.

We need smaller, more local, more connected, more transparent governments.

Re: Media trust hits new low

#83
I have been trying to imagine a kind of template for news commentary that could attempt to award productive discourse. I don't think there's an easy way around it being gamed but it's fun to think about. Something like:

* Here are several basic facts

* Here is our best interpretation of the facts given the context.

* here are interpretations that the other side(s) are putting forth, stated in their strongest form such that they would agree with it as stated

* here is our analysis of why those other interpretations are not as strong as our own.

You could maybe rank or sort these based on how many 'other siders' agree with (upvote) their presentation of the other side mixed with how much you agree with the basis of their analysis to choose your favorite sources of commentary.

Re: Media trust hits new low

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporate news aren't partisan. Unless you count chasing the bottom line as an ideology, that is. Fox, to take an extreme examples, isn't really partisan. They have just found a juicy business model where they've learnt to titillate the sensitivities of a certain segment of the population to maximize revenue. I don't have problem with a biased news source, as long as I have enough news sources to dig from and can ave…

>Fox, to take an extreme examples, isn't really partisan. They have just found a juicy business model where they've learnt to titillate the sensitivities of a certain segment of the population to maximize revenue. That just describes their motivations as not being partisan. Their product is still highly partisan.

> Their product is still highly partisan.

Fair enough, but they're not really a news source.

Re: Media trust hits new low

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR, PBS, BBC, AustralianBC, CanadianBC, etc are not for profit and exist in the public interest. These are an important subset of the mass media in English. We need to make sure these organs hold to the public interest principle, and also that they can maintain reliable funding.

Well, they're supposed to exist in the public interest, but it seems like it could be true that they're vehemently opposed by at least half of the populations they're supposed to be serving.

So are the COVID vaccines[1]. Lack of universal popularity doesn't make something bad, wrong or unworthy of enthusiastic support.

[1] I exaggerate the proportion, but maybe you did too.

Re: Media trust hits new low

#87

I stopped following corporate news 2 years ago and started paying for independent creators and journalists instead on Substack and Locals. I follow substack, locals and other communities of of Glenn Greenwald, Viva Frei and Robert Barnes, Kim Iverson, Steven Crowder mug club, Jimmy Dore, Matt Taibbi, Aaron Mate, Michael Tracey, Alison Morrow, Sharyl Attkinson.

I absolutely cannot fathom what would lead somebody into paying to listen to what Steven Crowder and Glenn Greenwald want to spew at them. The rest, I've never heard of so I can't comment.

I hope you manage to find whatever peace it is you're looking for in life.

Re: Media trust hits new low

#88

Simple solution - look at all the other western democracies that don't have this problem (I really mean have this problem less, obviously there is going to be biased tabloid rags in every country). Coincidentally, this seems to align pretty well with countries that don't have a bunch of media outlets owned by the Murdoch empire... curious.

> look at all the other western democracies that don't have this problem

Which one is that exactly?

The couple of western democracies I am familiar with all have similar problems with their mainstream medias.

Re: Media trust hits new low

#89

Pushing narratives instead of reporting the truth has a corrosive effect on reputation, who knew? ;-) There are many small teams on YouTube and other places that are building up a community of patrons to sponsor their efforts, both in news and other areas. It is through these efforts that I see a replacement for the mass media emerging. Their dedicated non-advertiser driven source of support allows them to take risks…

At the same time, YouTube has been detrimental to trust, like facebook. It takes paying customers away and at the same time pushes “counter narratives.” I don't see how a bunch of small teams with very limited investigation resources can buck that trend. Even if they’d cooperate, trust in them would depend on the weakest link.

Edit: mobile typos

Re: Media trust hits new low

#90
post #63

Um, no. You gain people's trust by being consistently worthy of trust. This article seems to think that trust is it's own fungible but inconvertible substance (the media has lost theirs, so someone else needs to give them some), rather than something that derives from an objective reality.

> You gain people's trust by being consistently worthy of trust. People trust repeated liers all the time. And truth telling institutions are rarely most trusted popular ones.

Whenever people complain about the state of their society, I can’t help but think they still really desire the current situation.
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