Just 34% of Americans’ say they trust the mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” according to Gallop. In that polling, Democrats generally trust the media more than Republicans. The majority of Republicans indicate that they have no trust in the media at all.
A New York Times-Siena College poll found almost 60 percent of voters view the media as a “major threat to democracy.” This was also divided along partisan lines, with 87 percent of Trump voters indicating they view the media as a major threat, while 33 percent of Biden voters thought so.
These numbers can be worse depending on the poll but they all underscore one thing: Americans say they don’t trust news media.
Trust in media, misinformation, disinformation, news literacy, content moderation. How do we stay informed without becoming overwhelmed with outrage overload? These are all challenging problems.
In this episode, I sit down with Shippensburg University Professor Lawrence Eppard to find answers.
Lawrence M. Eppard is Associate Professor of Sociology at Shippensburg University. His areas of research include poverty, economic inequality, and racial inequities. He has recently published the book Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequality (with Rank and Bullock), and is currently working on a book for Oxford University Press tentatively titled On Inequality and Freedom.
Links
Director of the Connors Forum for a Healthy Democracy
Host of the Utterly Moderate Podcast