WHERE OUR TRUST IN NEWS LIVES
the media they use is “contaminated with untrustworthy information.” The vast majority (76%) “worry about false information or fake news being used as a weapon.” “I think that much of the distrust of national media revolves around the general polarization of national politics,” explained Paxton. It’s something community newspapers avoid by simply being as fair as possible. “We all have the experience of writing a story and then walking down the street and running into the person that we just wrote about,” he explained. “And when you write a story, you keep that in the back of your mind. You want to be scrupulously fair and not just throwing arrows.” The problem is that people in places far from New York and Washington newsrooms are being forced more and more to read or view the national news because sometimes it is their only option. More and more local newspapers across the country are closing. There is no one left to report on lacrosse games or water authority decisions or city councils or police forces. A study by the University of North Carolina Hussman School of Media and Journalism Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner . She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between.
People at national newsrooms often have no one working there who is like them. showed that hundreds of newspapers have closed across the country. Thousands of journalists have lost their jobs, leaving local news deserts for millions. People in these news deserts end up getting their news from someone outside their community who does not share their values or worldview. They end up seeing bias and a lack of balance in the reporting. People at national newsrooms often have no one working there who is like them. “This is a real interesting issue,” Paxton remarked to me. “Last Friday was the Lee- Jackson Day Celebration; we had people who dressed up in Confederate dress, waving Confederate flags... all over the place. Monday was MLK Day. We had, even in the freezing weather, a big parade and some neat observances around the community. We covered both of those very thoroughly. I can’t think of two things that are so diametrically opposed, and yet everybody seemed to get along... Covered by the national news it would have definitely been sensational.” Paxton, who was once the president of the National Newspaper Association, is bullish on the future of community newspapers in spite of all the bad national news. “No doubt they are always needed and critical,” he said. “They are the heart of where the trust in news lives.” © The Creators
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February 2020
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