DANIEL HENNINGER on loss of trust in the media. But it’s worse than that:
All this has gotten the media into high anxiety over the one thing it presumes to value most: the public’s trust. “The defining problem of contemporary television,” the BBC’s Mr. Paxman told the TV professionals last week, “is trust: Can you believe what you see on television, does television treat people fairly, is it healthy for society?”
Fascinating and worthwhile questions to be sure, insofar as most opinion polls of how much the American public “trusts” the press, TV news or even Congress have put their approval ratings in Lindsay Lohanland.
But for the media ponderers there’s a more troubling issue than the restoration of trust. It’s the possibility that too many people now simply don’t much care about the major media anymore.
I expect they find being ignored even worse than being distrusted.