Public opinion on the question of whether President Trump should be impeached has barely budged over the past few months, and many journalists have cited expanding ideological bubbles as the reason. And they’re not wrong.
But we forget that there was a time where good journalism penetrated ideological bubbles. So why doesn’t it now? Because journalism is stuck in its own bubble. And worse, we don’t seem to want to address the thorny question of how we got there or take much of the blame for it.
So why isn’t our work having more impact on public opinion? I think there are five reasons.
We are not trusted. According to a recent RAND report, 41 percent of those polled said they believed news has become less reliable than in the past, with only 15 percent saying news is more reliable now. Gallup reported in the fall that only 41 percent of Americans said they trusted the media, with that number at 15 percent for Republicans. Yes, Donald Trump’s anti-press rhetoric has surely contributed to that decline. But in 2014, only 27 percent of Republicans said they trusted the press — so the larger issue preceded Trump.
Some journalistic traditions haven’t effectively made the transition to a digitally dominated world. The largest one is the distinction between news and editorial content. No journalist should ever again shake their head and exclaim in explanation, “But that’s the opinion page, not the news page!” I’m not sure that distinction was even as clear in print as we thought, but in a disaggregated digital world, it’s become utterly meaningless. Much of the public believes an opinion column Post that attacks a politician is a sign of the publication’s bias. It doesn’t matter if it’s fair; it’s the reality. But reality can be hard to find from inside the bubble.
We’ve done a poor job of communicating with our audience. This must change as we move into a reader revenue–driven world. While industry chatter about local news is almost always focused on its massive financial struggles, Pew found in March that 71 percent of consumers thought local media was doing well financially. That’s because we stink at showing vulnerability and being honest with consumers that we need their support if we’re going to stay alive. It’s time to stop couching layoffs as smart digital reorganizations, and admit what we know: Local media is in really tough shape.
Social media has pulled the curtain back — and it isn’t pretty. Twitter is its own mini journalism bubble. It’s the most partisan of the social platforms, and also the one where journalists are highly over-represented among the user base. What could go wrong there? As it turns out, quite a lot.
We spend too much time patting ourselves on the back. While I agree that what we do as journalists is important to democracy, one of journalism’s core rules has always been: Show me, don’t tell me. Look at this 2018 study from Arizona State and see how much more highly we rate ourselves than our sources or the public does. We need to do a better job of letting our work speak for itself.
When we decide to let our journalism speak louder than individual journalists, when we decide that many of our traditions need revisiting in this new age, and when we open up to the consumers who are increasingly supporting us, the bond will get tighter and the trust will follow. But the bubble’s gotta burst first. And I wish I felt as if the pop was right around the corner. But I don’t.
Jim Brady is the CEO of Spirited Media.
Public opinion on the question of whether President Trump should be impeached has barely budged over the past few months, and many journalists have cited expanding ideological bubbles as the reason. And they’re not wrong.
But we forget that there was a time where good journalism penetrated ideological bubbles. So why doesn’t it now? Because journalism is stuck in its own bubble. And worse, we don’t seem to want to address the thorny question of how we got there or take much of the blame for it.
So why isn’t our work having more impact on public opinion? I think there are five reasons.
We are not trusted. According to a recent RAND report, 41 percent of those polled said they believed news has become less reliable than in the past, with only 15 percent saying news is more reliable now. Gallup reported in the fall that only 41 percent of Americans said they trusted the media, with that number at 15 percent for Republicans. Yes, Donald Trump’s anti-press rhetoric has surely contributed to that decline. But in 2014, only 27 percent of Republicans said they trusted the press — so the larger issue preceded Trump.
Some journalistic traditions haven’t effectively made the transition to a digitally dominated world. The largest one is the distinction between news and editorial content. No journalist should ever again shake their head and exclaim in explanation, “But that’s the opinion page, not the news page!” I’m not sure that distinction was even as clear in print as we thought, but in a disaggregated digital world, it’s become utterly meaningless. Much of the public believes an opinion column Post that attacks a politician is a sign of the publication’s bias. It doesn’t matter if it’s fair; it’s the reality. But reality can be hard to find from inside the bubble.
We’ve done a poor job of communicating with our audience. This must change as we move into a reader revenue–driven world. While industry chatter about local news is almost always focused on its massive financial struggles, Pew found in March that 71 percent of consumers thought local media was doing well financially. That’s because we stink at showing vulnerability and being honest with consumers that we need their support if we’re going to stay alive. It’s time to stop couching layoffs as smart digital reorganizations, and admit what we know: Local media is in really tough shape.
Social media has pulled the curtain back — and it isn’t pretty. Twitter is its own mini journalism bubble. It’s the most partisan of the social platforms, and also the one where journalists are highly over-represented among the user base. What could go wrong there? As it turns out, quite a lot.
We spend too much time patting ourselves on the back. While I agree that what we do as journalists is important to democracy, one of journalism’s core rules has always been: Show me, don’t tell me. Look at this 2018 study from Arizona State and see how much more highly we rate ourselves than our sources or the public does. We need to do a better job of letting our work speak for itself.
When we decide to let our journalism speak louder than individual journalists, when we decide that many of our traditions need revisiting in this new age, and when we open up to the consumers who are increasingly supporting us, the bond will get tighter and the trust will follow. But the bubble’s gotta burst first. And I wish I felt as if the pop was right around the corner. But I don’t.
Jim Brady is the CEO of Spirited Media.
Laura E. Davis Know the context your journalism is operating within
Nushin Rashidian Are platforms a bridge or a lifeline?
Ståle Grut OSINT journalism goes mainstream
Cristina Kim Public media stops trying to serve “everybody”
Beena Raghavendran The year of the local engagement reporter
Margarita Noriega The platforms try to figure out what to do with single-subject newsrooms
Kevin D. Grant The free press stands against authoritarians’ attacks on truth
Tonya Mosley The neutrality vs. objectivity game ends
Barbara Gray Join local libraries on the frontlines of civic engagement
Alice Antheaume Trade “politics” for “power”
Meredith Artley Stronger solidarity among news organizations
Jeff Kofman Speed through technology
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen The business we want, not the business we had
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz News coverage gets geo-fragmented
Josh Schwartz Publishers move beyond the metered paywall
Don Day Respect the non-paying audience
Masuma Ahuja Slower, quieter, more measured and thoughtful
Logan Jaffe You don’t need fancy tools to listen
Pablo Boczkowski The day after November 4
Cindy Royal Prepare media students for skills, not job titles
Brenda P. Salinas Treating MP3 files like text
Victor Pickard We reclaim a public good
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Power to the people (on your audience team)
Sarah Schmalbach Journalist, quantify thyself
Jennifer Brandel A love letter from the year 2073
Kathleen Searles Pay more attention to attention
A.J. Bauer A fork in the road for conservative media
Seth C. Lewis 20 questions for 2020
Simon Galperin Journalism becomes more democratic
Sarah Alvarez I’m ready for post-news
Francesco Zaffarano TikTok without generational prejudice
Imaeyen Ibanga Let’s take it slow
Anthony Nadler Clash of Clans: Election Edition
Catalina Albeanu Rebuilding journalism, together
Lauren Duca The rise of the journalistic influencer
Logan Molyneux and Shannon McGregor Think twice before turning to Twitter
Talia Stroud The work of reconnecting starts November 4
Richard J. Tofel A constraint of the reader-revenue model emerges
Kerri Hoffman Opening closed systems
Monica Drake A renewed focus on misinformation
Jonas Kaiser Russian bots are just today’s slacktivists
Sara K. Baranowski A big year for little newspapers
Mariana Moura Santos The future of journalism is collaborative
Zizi Papacharissi A president leads, the press follows, reality fades
Sue Robinson Campaign coverage as test bed for engagement experiments
Whitney Phillips A time to question core beliefs
Jeremy Olshan All journalism should be service journalism
Fiona Spruill The climate crisis gets the coverage it deserves
Colleen Shalby Journalists become media literacy teachers
Tanya Cordrey Saying no to more good ideas
Irving Washington Leadership isn’t something you learn on the job
Jim Brady We’ll complain about other people living in bubbles while ignoring our own
S. Mitra Kalita The race to 2021
Cory Haik We’re already consuming the future of news — now we have to produce it
Nico Gendron Make better products if you want to reach Gen Z
John Keefe Journalism gets hacked
L. Gordon Crovitz Fighting misinformation requires journalism, not secret algorithms
Peter Bale Lies get further normalized
james Wahutu Western journalists, learn from your African peers
Tamar Charney From broadcast to bespoke
Helen Havlak Platforms shine a light on original reporting
Jasmine McNealy A call for context
Jeremy Gilbert and Jarrod Dicker A call for collaboration between storytelling and tech
Nicholas Jackson What’s left of local gets comfortable with reader support
Christa Scharfenberg It’s time to make journalism a field that supports and respects women
Knight Foundation Five generations of journalists, learning from each other
Mike Caulfield Native verification tools for the blue checkmark crowd
Carl Bialik Journalists will try running the whole shop
Meg Marco Everything happens somewhere
Alexandra Borchardt Get out of the office and talk to people
Rick Berke Incoming fire from both left and right
Elizabeth Dunbar Frank talk, and then action
Joni Deutsch Podcasting unsilences the silent
Dan Shanoff Sports media enters the Bronny era
Craig Newmark Formalizing newsrooms’ battle against disinformation
Felix Salmon Spotify launches a news channel
Rachel Glickhouse Journalists get left behind in the industry’s decline
Carrie Brown-Smith Engaged journalism: It’s finally happening
Errin Haines Race and gender aren’t a 2020 story — they’re the story
Matt DeRienzo Local broadcasters begin to fill the gaps left by newspapers
Joe Amditis Collaborative journalism takes its rightful place at the table
Eric Nuzum Podcasting finally creates another mega-hit show
Rachel Schallom The value of push alerts goes beyond open rates
Rachel Davis Mersey The business of local TV news will enter its downward slide
Ernie Smith The death of the industry fad
Mario García Think small (screen)
Kristen Muller The year we operationalize community engagement
Jakob Moll A slow-moving tech backlash among young people
Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young The promise of nonprofit journalism
Kourtney Bitterly Transparency isn’t just a desire, it’s an expectation
Jake Shapiro Podcasting gets listener relationship management
Bill Grueskin Our ethics codes get an overhaul
Julia B. Chan We 👏 take 👏 breaks 👏
Lucas Graves A smarter conversation about how (and why) fact-checking matters
Sonali Prasad Climate change storytelling gets multidimensional
Juleyka Lantigua-Williams A changing industry amps up podcasters’ ambitions
Heather Bryant Some kinds of journalism aren’t worth saving
Sarah Stonbely More people start caring about news inequality
Tom Glaisyer Journalism can emerge newly vibrant and powerful
Stefanie Murray Charitable giving goes collaborative
Raney Aronson-Rath News deserts will proliferate — but so will new solutions
Joshua Darr All that campaign cash will make the media’s problems worse
Geneva Overholser Death to bothsidesism
Brian Moritz The end of “stick to sports”
Greg Emerson News apps fall further behind
Doris Truong The year of radical salary transparency
Nathalie Malinarich Betting on loyalty
John Garrett It’s the best time in a century to start a local news organization
Steve Henn The dawning audio web
Ben Werdmuller Use the tools of journalism to save it
Emily Withrow The year we kill the news article
An Xiao Mina The Forum we wanted, the forum we got
Bill Adair A Nobel Prize, a Brad Pitt film, and a Taylor Swift song
Hossein Derakhshan AI can’t conjure up an Errol Morris
Linda Solomon Wood Everyone in your organization, moving toward a common goal
Joanne McNeil A return to blogs (finally? sort of?)
Michael W. Wagner Increasingly fractured, but little bit deliberative
Monique Judge The year to organize, unionize, and fight
Heidi Tworek The year of positive pushback
Annie Rudd The expanded ambiguity of the news photograph
Moreno Cruz Osório In Brazil, collaboration in a time of state attacks
Alana Levinson Brand-backed media gets another look
Mira Lowe The year of student-powered journalism
Matthew Pressman News consumers divide into haves and have-nots
M. Scott Havens First-party data becomes media’s most important currency
Dannagal G. Young Let’s disrupt the logic that’s driving Americans apart
Elizabeth Hansen and Jesse Holcomb Local news initiatives run into a capital shortage
Sarah Marshall The year to learn about news moments
Candis Callison Taking a cue from Indigenous journalists on climate change