The media once claimed to speak truth to power. Today, it’s nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, and yet members of the media scratch their heads and wonder why trust in the media is at an all-time low. And, naturally, Chuck Todd just offered the media world a masterclass in missing the point.
The former Meet the Press moderator sat down with Newsmax for an interview that aired on Saturday on America Right Now, during which he explained why he thinks Americans have lost trust in journalism. Naturally, he got it wrong.
Todd believes that the collapse in media credibility stems from a broader breakdown in confidence across American institutions. His theory hinges on a simple premise: journalists are only as reliable as their sources.
"One of the reasons I think trust in media has fallen to so, so low is remember what the media is," Todd said. "It's a reflection of 'I always say I'm as good as the sources I have, not necessarily the sources I want at times.'"
According to Todd, when public officials and institutions provide information that later proves questionable, the journalists who reported it get tarred with the same brush. "We may be reporting what the 'experts' tell us," he warned. "But if the public doesn't trust those experts, and then we in the media are quoting those experts, they don't trust us."
Talk about missing the point.
People have indeed lost trust in experts, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic ripped the mask off, revealing experts who were more interested in pushing a narrative that justified more government control than in following the science. Americans watched as contradictory mandates rolled out, dissenting voices got silenced, and questions about origins, treatments, and policies were dismissed as dangerous misinformation.
But if Todd thinks that’s the root problem with media trust, he’s deluding himself. The problem isn’t with sourcing. Journalists chose which experts to platform, which questions to ask, and which narratives to advance.
Recommended: The Democrats Need to Start Panicking About the Epstein Files
Todd also claims the distrust now cuts across ideological lines. "What you have now, I would argue, is essentially the left doesn't trust the media now, and the right doesn't trust the media," he said. But rather than examine whether newsrooms have earned this bipartisan skepticism through their coverage choices, Todd points his finger elsewhere.
He blames big technology companies and their algorithms for creating echo chambers. "I put the blame on big tech and algorithms that sort of, I think, make it too easy for too many people to live in a bubble, a filter bubble," he said. Maybe if the media were more honest, that wouldn’t be an issue.
To his credit, Todd acknowledges one legitimate issue: the industry's geographic concentration. "I always say we have too many journalists in Washington, in New York, and not enough everywhere else," he said. For sure, the clustering of reporters in a handful of coastal cities has created a disconnect between them and the rest of the country. But in the end, Todd blames so many people for the lack of trust in the media, except for the journalists themselves, who are more committed to a political agenda than to objective reporting, and that’s the real problem.
And until the media recognizes this, the lack of trust will continue.
