NICK GILLESPIE: Why America Distrusts ‘the Media’ and What to Do About It: For starters, don’t describe the audience as incest survivors.
It’s magnanimous of a well-connected journalist with a Harvard Ph.D. to identify with the plebes (“…who was going to rape us”). But the implications of the metaphor are unmistakable: Regular Americans are children who are defenseless against a predator. “We” must be protected, either by President Dad or Media Mom, because we have no agency, no power, no strength of our own. Forget the fact that even though Trump was charged with sexual harassment and assault by many women, he won 2 million more votes than Mitt Romney managed; that must be evidence of a political-sexual Stockholm Syndrome. Trump has been repeatedly rebuffed by the courts and, from time to time, even by his own party in Congress. I have no love for him, but to cast Americans, including his supporters, as children incapable of independent action or thought only confirms the critique of the press as an elite that has more in common with D.C.’s political class than jes’ plain folks toiling away at mundane jobs in flyover country.
Do most members of the media see their audience with this mixture of pity and contempt? Journalists do seem to be increasingly concentrated in the well-heeled, coastal enclaves that breed such attitudes. . . .
Not so long ago, journalism was a trade that was open to high-school graduates. During the last several decades, writing for a living has been professionalized to the point that most journalists have a college degree and an increasing number have majored in journalism. That trend only increases the distance between news producers and news consumers.
All of this matters because the news media play a unique role in society. . . . Years ago, pioneering blogger Ken Layne notoriously proclaimed, “It’s 2001, and we can Fact Check your ass.” His specific target was Robert Fisk, a reporter whose last name was turned into a verb signifying a point-by-point refutation of an article or argument. Now it’s 2018, and readers can still fact-check journalists’ collective ass. They will respond more favorably to those of us who make it easy for them by being upfront, honest, and responsive without having to be asked first.
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