• The media is often blamed for declining trust, but there is little evidence that it has gotten worse since the pre-Vietnam era.
• In the past, journalists often collaborated with government officials to mislead people, and didn’t report on JFK’s affairs or FDR’s paralysis.
• Today, the media landscape is much more competitive, and mistakes are widely publicized.
• The main problem is that the news-reading audience doesn’t care about accuracy, and is more interested in cheap talk and fandom-style interest.
• Examples of this include the criticism of 538’s election forecasts, and the criticism of CNN’s “mostly peaceful” chyron.
Published February 15, 2023
Visit Slow Boring to read Matthew Yglesias’s original post Why you can’t trust the media