Local media should speak up about national media problems
MINOT, N.D. — One of the chief concerns for those of us working in the news business is the decline in public trust in the news media.
This gets overstated at times. Criticism is always louder than praise, and the critics aren’t always rigorously honest in their critiques. What angers them, often, isn’t something that’s inaccurate, or unethically reported, so much as a news item that leaves them upset. They’re shooting the messenger, in other words, and in their pique will often claim that they’re not going to read anymore, or they’re going to cancel their subscription, but they’ll inevitably turn up in the conversation again a few weeks hence.
Still reading. Still subscribed.
So it goes.
Still, public statements of mistrust in media, even as we fight a maelstrom of misinformation from the political and social media spheres, should concern everyone who works in the news media.
