GEORGE KORDA: National news media won’t get out of steamroller’s way.

National news media outlets today are like the security guard in the movie “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” who stands, screaming, as toward him creeps an Austin-driven steamroller. Eventually, the guard is squished. The scene parodies every movie or TV show in which a person in danger, wide-eyed and shrieking, is still as danger approaches, leaving the audience thinking, “Why not get out of the way?”

In this scenario, Americans are the steamroller, the hapless security guard is the national news media, now at historically low levels of public confidence, according to Gallup: “Americans continue to register record-low trust in the mass media, with 31% expressing a ‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of confidence in the media to report the news ‘fully, accurately and fairly,’ similar to last year’s 32%.” In the mid-1970s, confidence was at 70%.

Media organizations have become less trusted as they have become more politically and ideologically partisan. No sentient being can spend time watching or reading MSNBC, FOX News, CNN, The New York Times, the three major networks, the Washington Post, and other major outlets, and not see that they’re becoming more like social media rather than news reporting organizations, with attendant biases.

However, when I said to someone in the news business, “News coverage without objectivity is propaganda,” the response was, “You need to explain that more fully.” He suggested that was too undefined a standard.

Is it, now?

Related:

This is it now pic.twitter.com/CRfOSkLbYO

— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) December 4, 2024