May 17, 2024 • 47 mins
On this episode of The Middle we're asking you: how can media organizations regain your trust? We're joined by Mike Pesca, host of The Gist podcast and Sarah Alvarez, founder and editor of Outlier Media. The Middle's house DJ Tolliver joins as well, plus callers from around the country #media #mediatrust #mainstreammedia
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Middle is supported by Journalism Funding Partners, a nonprofit
organization striving to increase the sustainability of local journalism by
building connections between donors and news organizations. More information on
how you can support The Middle at listen to Themiddle
dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm Jeremy Hobson, joined as always by our house DJ Tolliver. Tolliver,
do you know what the most trusted name in news is?
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Uh Elon Musk, Wendy Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
No, No, actually no, it's actually the Weather Channel. That is,
according to an economist, pull the people. They believe what
they see on the Weather Channel more than anything else,
which is very interesting for our topic.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
As you know, Tlliver, this show The Middle is trying
to do a number of things. First and foremost, as
we always say, we're trying to elevate the voices of
people in the geographic and political middle into the national conversation.
We want to get away from the extremes and focus
on the often ignored people who live outside the.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Media echo chamber.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
We also want to be an outlet that is trusted
across the political spectrum.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We're here in.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Good faith trying to have conversations about the big issues
in a civil way, and we welcome different points of
view in the hope that we can earn listeners. Trust
and trust in the media is near record lows. A
recent Gallup poll found only thirty two percent of the
population has a great deal or a fair amount of
confidence that the media reports the news in a full,
(01:27):
fair and accurate way. So our question this hour, how
can news organizations regain your trust? Tolliver, what is the
number for people to call in?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three or right to
us at Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And the calls are coming already in so let's meet
our panel. Mike Pesca is a longtime journalist who currently
hosts the daily podcast that Just Mike. Great to have
you in the Middle.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Oh, thanks for having me on, Seanefully, I have never
worked at the Weather Channel, but my application is in
It's not too late.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
And Sarah Alvarez is also as founder and editor of
Outlier Media, which is a nonprofit news organization focused on
serving the people of Detroit.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Sarah, great to have you in the Middle as well.
Speaker 6 (02:09):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Good to be here, and before we get to the phones,
let's diagnose the problem if we can.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Why don't people trust the media as much as they
used to, Mike Pesco.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
They've proven themselves not worthy of the people's trust, and
it is because we are a wash, as in, we.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Are a washing information, but we don't really have meaning.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
And so in the nineteen seventies or nineteen eighties, our
three broadcast channels and our big city evening paper and
morning paper, they had a bit of a monopoly on
the information that people got, and they took that seriously,
and they knew that everyone would be reading their publications
or tuning in. So if you presented a worldview that
was just seemed upside down to a large portion of
(02:50):
your city, you would suffer. Now you're incentivized to serve
every niche and a hugely successful it's just think you
usually successful cable station like MSNBC. Read a big article
on it and it's left word tilt in the New
York Times today. That could draw when their ratings are
going gaga, that could draw one and a half percent
(03:12):
of the American viewing public.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So they're not to pick on.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
MSNBC, but everyone is incentivized to play for a niche
to play against this backdrop of so much attentuated attention
spans that it is very hard to stick to the
stick to the virtue of being honest, truthful, relevant and interesting,
(03:37):
and that's what you have to do, and the incentives
are very much aligned against it.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I will say it could be a small audience, but
as you know, MSNBC and CNN and Fox News are
on the wall in just about every major news organization
all day long, so the other journalists are still watching
those channels. Sarah Alvarez, what do you think, why do
people not trust them media as much as they used to?
Speaker 6 (04:02):
Well, I think there's something to what Mike was saying,
But I think that that question of irrelevancy is really important,
and I do want to make a distinction. While national
news might not be trusted, local news is much more
trusted than national news, and that's true across the board.
(04:23):
It did not surprise me at all that the Weather
channel is the most trusted outlet, because weather is something
that people need to know every day, even though we
have it on our phones. And I think that goes
to like a very important question about what is the
purpose of the news at Outlier, we very much think
(04:44):
that our first goal is to fill information gaps, So
we're really trying to give people information that is directly
relevant to them, like Mike said, but that they can
also use. And we make sure that journalists intervene when
they have a problem that they can't solve, and we
run a text message based information service in addition to
doing accountability work and culture coverage. So I do think
(05:08):
it's it is not just the tilt, it's also what
are these news organizations doing, What are they giving and
are they just covering events or are they really working
to provide a service.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Let's go to the phones because there are a lot
of calls coming in. Deborah is on the line from Minneapolis. Hi, Debrah,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
What do you think, Well, I was speaking with a
gentleman earlier and I just said that I feel like
the coverage of the pandemic was not a broad view
of the pandemic, and I feel like there are a
lot of alternative ways to take care of yourself, supplementation, acupuncture, naturopathic,
(05:49):
and I don't feel like that was covered interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So you believe that the media was too one sided
in coverage of the pandemic. Mike Pesca, You know, I
remember covering the pandemic every single day, and the doctors
were saying, you know, thank you for talking about the
value of the vaccines, for example, thank you for covering
how important it is for people to do. This is
ear in the early days of the pandemic. But as
the pandemic went on, of course, it became so politicized
(06:16):
that some people thought the media was doing the wrong
thing by talking about various aspects.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
I'm sympathetic to the caller's point, I really am. I
don't think that the media did well. Of course, when
we say the media, we mean both Joe Rogan and
ABC's this Week, who had must At Fauci on twelve times,
So how could they both not have done well? And
I think we do defall to the mainstream media or
the big networks and the big cable channels, and we
(06:41):
trust them to get it right, or to at least
have enough humility to say this is the best information
that we're going on at the time. And so I
don't think they did the second thing as much as
they needed to. I literally don't think that they thought
it was only the best information at the time. I
think that when lockdowns were prescribed, there was huge agreement
(07:04):
that this was necessary. In retrospect, I happened to think
it was necessary, but it's also a bit of a
closer call, and some countries that didn't go with lockdowns succeeded.
And then you have the question of how long did
the lockdowns need to go? And you had entire school
systems that were tearing each other apart over this question.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
And I do think that most people.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Who couldn't be more impassionate about this and were also
really knowledgeable about what was going on in their schools
would tune to maybe the national media and see Fauci,
who I think was doing the best job he could,
but talking without the undertone of we're trying our best
and we might be getting it wrong. I never heard
any of that. I heard so much certainty that in
(07:44):
retrospect couldn't have all been true. And so I think
now the media, sorry the people, look back on that era,
and many many of them have problems with how the
media covered the pandemic, even if, like you, I think
that vaccines were great and a miracle, and I don't
think it I know and it saved hundreds of thousands
of lives.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Let's go to ad who's in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Hi, Ed, welcome to the middle. What what can the
media do to regain your trust?
Speaker 8 (08:09):
Well, we need more independent media. We got to get
rid of this corporate media that we have out there.
It's strictly looking at how bit you know? How do
I not offend my advertisers? And the media groups need
to provide more journalists with more time to dig into stories.
(08:32):
And the government, quite honestly, if they want to cover
something up, they just don't respond to feuer requests over
and over and over again until finally it's out of
the news cycle and therefore gets ignored. It's horrible, Ed.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Where do you Where do you get?
Speaker 8 (08:52):
What media?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Do you trust?
Speaker 7 (08:54):
Ed?
Speaker 8 (08:55):
Well, I can get my news from all over the place.
And one person who because of his own demons, I'm sure,
but I'm not positive. I don't know him personally, Charlie Leduff,
a Pulp Surprise living journalist. He had his own show
going on here in Detroit. He had to pay for
his own requests that he did stream lancing. It took
(09:18):
him almost a year to get them. Yeah, and then
he had the fact chet. When he's trying to fact
check it, he's being blocked at every avenue possible.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And thank you for that. I think we've got it there.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And Sarah Alvarez, I don't know if you know the
person that ed was talking about there, but he says
too much corporate greed in the media should be more
independently focused, like what you're doing, right.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
So yeah, I would definitely suggest that you look about
liar media. And I also think that there is I
do think that the point is taken that people feel
pretty disconnected from accountability and not as powerful as they
really are. We run a program at Outlier and it's
(10:02):
run in sixteen other places across the country called the
Documentar's Program. The Documentar's Program started out of Chicago. We
were the second news organization to take it on. And
what we do is train people and then pay them
to cover government meetings and community meetings. They're paid eighteen
(10:23):
dollars an hour. They take notes at these meetings, they
live tweet these meetings. Those notes are edited by two
different editors at one of nine different news organizations in
the city, and then they become part of the public
record and they also help impact the coverage, but they're
used on their own and it is. We have more
(10:44):
than five hundred documenters working with us in Detroit and
it's become an incredibly powerful group of people who are
just normal Detroiters. But I think have started to work
with news organizations to make people more accountable to them,
and I do think that that makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, you got to have money for that.
Speaker 6 (11:04):
Sure, we fundraise for that. We're a nonprofit news organization
and we have to do fundraising. I do think that
that is a better model than you know, hedge fund
backed newspapers for example. But it's not you can have
poor quality news coming out of a nonprofit. It is
really on news organizations to make sure that they are
delivering high quality, actionable, valuable information every day.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Just checking in on what we have coming in online, Tolliver,
I see that John in Chicago writes, mistrust, conspiracy, and
fear is the point of conservative media.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So it can't be fixed.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
When it is working as planned as for NPR, it
can stop endlessly focusing focusing on what hell monsters all
white men are. But I love what the middle is
trying to do. Mike We're going to get to NPR
in a moment after the break, but I mean, yeah, anyway,
we'll get to We'll get to NPR. We have a
lot more to come, but Tolliver, I do want to
(12:00):
and our listeners. To the Middle is available as a
podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the iHeart app
or wherever you listen to podcasts. We have a lot
more to come, and we'll be right back with more
of the middle.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
If you're just tuning in the Middle as a national
call in show, we're focused on elevating voices from the
middle geographically, politically, and philosophically, or maybe you just want
to meet in the middle. This hour, we're asking you
what can media organizations do to regain your trust? Tolliver,
what's the number to call in?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm joined by Outlier Media founder and editor Sarah Alvarez
and Mike Pesca, longtime journalists and host of the Gist podcasts.
And before we get back to the phones, let's talk
about NPR as we said we would. Now, this show
is not distributed by NPR, but it is on NPR stations,
and NPR was in the news recently because of Uri Berliner,
the former NPR editor, who said the network had lost
(12:56):
the trust of Americans because it was two one sided. Basically,
that's he meant was the left. Here is what he
had to say during an interview on News Nation.
Speaker 9 (13:05):
Most people are not locked into ideologies, and I think
many people are just sick of it. And this one
of the reasons people distrusts so much of the media,
whether it's legacy media, whether it's conservative media. You know
what you're getting. It's all pre digested and spit out
to you. You know what the take is going to be.
(13:25):
And I think it's ultimately unsatisfying, and for a vast
part of this nation, they don't want it.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Mike Peska, I remember speaking with journalists at a public
radio station a couple of years ago, and they were
trying to decide whether they should ever allow their member
of Congress on the air again because this person had
voted against certifying the results of the last election. My
thought to them was of course you have to have
that person on challenge them, but they're elected to represent
(13:52):
all of your listeners. There are many who disagree with that.
What do you think about that? What do you think
about NPR and what Uri Berliner's critique.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Was, Well, if that station decided the answer was no,
they could still call themselves a radio station. I don't
see how they could call themselves a public radio station
without violating some truth and labeling laws that I agree with.
So much of what Ury had to say is going
to be on my show. We did an over hour
long interview a couple of days ago, and we're airing that.
(14:23):
I don't think that the exact and what he was
mostly talking about was a lack of viewpoint diversity, and
he positive that it was mostly a lack of Republicans
or conservatives.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
I wouldn't even say that that was so true.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
I think for a long time, for a few years,
and especially after the election of Donald Trump, and then
things accelerated during the reckoning and the pandemic and the
death and murder of George Floyd, there was a social
justice activism lens that so informed so many pieces. And
so maybe this gets to your listener who talked about
(14:59):
the white men and healthscape. But there was a jargon,
there was a doctrinaire mindset, and it was very, very
hard to ever escape it. Now sometimes I enjoy all
ideologies and seeing the world through the prism of say,
white supremacy is interesting to me as far as it
is accurate and relevant.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
But you have to be truthful, accurate.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
And relevant when things when the accuracy of things began
to be stretched, or when the relevance of some stories
was I would I very often would say to myself, Okay,
this one's not for me, and then the next story
would come down on the radio and say, Okay, this
one's not for me.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
And then after a while you're like, maybe the network's
not for me.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Listenership has dropped by thirty percent, their podcasts aren't doing well,
and they'll talk about true things like drivetime listenership got
hit hard during the pandemic, and just people are shifting
away from traditional ways of listening.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
But if you don't think about.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Your programming is the reason why people aren't listening, You're
not doing your job.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
You're not being the public. In public radio, as they
use to say.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Let's go to the phones, and Marvin is in North Hempstead,
Long Island.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
That's where the public enemy's from.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I don't believe the high is that right, Marvin?
Speaker 10 (16:11):
Hi?
Speaker 11 (16:12):
Yeah, I have a suggest I want to pass along
a suggestion I heard someone make recently that the New
York Times, the Washington Post, and sources like the Economist,
Wall Street Journal lowered their paywalls during the election season
so that people can get access to their content for free.
Because one of the problems is the junk news is free.
(16:35):
You can get that anywhere, but the quality, really good
sources like the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall
Street Journal, you got to pay for that. So I
think I'd like to know what the guests think of
that idea lowering their paywalls.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's the point. It's a great point, Marvin. Sarah Alvarez.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I'll go to you and just say, of course, you know,
social media, where so many people are getting their media
right now, is free for the most part. Whereas the
news organizations where you have journalists that are checking facts
and doing all that stuff, they cost money a.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Lot of times.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
Well, yeah, but NPR is free too. To the earlier point, yes,
and I don't. I would like to kind of push
back on that, because I think one of the problems
that a lot of news organizations have is that they're
actually going after too narrow of an audience. They're going
after only a certain kind of person and the person
(17:33):
that they're going after, and this is too bad that
this I came from public radio too, right, that they
that station, many stations are going after people who they
think can contribute and who can become members, right, And
so they're leaving out a lot of people and their concerns.
So it is not surprising that what you get is
(17:53):
an echo chamber, and people who have a lot of
money are overserved by media. They have too much information,
and then we have a lot of people around the
country that can't get information that they desperately need to survive.
And back to the pandemic, I think that's when I
talk about information gaps. What I'm talking about is that
(18:15):
is the state that we were in at the beginning
of the pandemic, when we did not know what to
do in order to keep ourselves safe. There are people
who live in information gaps all across this country every day,
and news organizations need to work harder to fill those gaps.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Let's go to Randy and Pittsburgh. Randy, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 10 (18:34):
Go ahead, Hi, how do you do? Thank you so much?
What would restore my customer? News actually has surprisingly little
to do with the news organizations themselves. Basically, you have
like about a quarter of the population who is being
said and constantly broadcasting massive amounts of disinformation. So what
(18:57):
would really improve I think things if you had I
don't know, for for lack of a better term, truthfulness
laws for social media, for stuff that you're allowed to say,
for stuff that's allowed to be broadcast. I mean asking
what any given news organization can do to improve trust
in the is right now with without addressing that It's
(19:17):
kind of like saying why these antibiotics aren't working in
a room that's filled with uranium two thirty five.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
But I guess who would police the social media if
you were going to try to keep it factual?
Speaker 10 (19:30):
That's that's a good question, you know, I I mean there,
I know there's there could think the things about, uh,
if there's truth in labeling laws, for example, I'm not
an expert on this, but I'm just brainstorming here. If
there is something like Uh, this is news at these
(19:52):
criteria admits. It's been fact checked by six organizations. By these,
it has this process. This is there no listen, even
if you don't believe it, it has gone through an
editorial process that has been verified by fat checkers. Simply
saying it's news because seven million people repeat alive that
somebody told that's just like, that's just a bulkern his opinion.
(20:16):
Forgive me for.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Well, no, that's that's it's a good point, Randy. Let
me let me bring it to Mike Pesca. Mike, you know,
it seems like the way that we do that on
social media when when they try to show you what's
true and what's not is a crowd.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Uh, it's like the crowd gets.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
To decide and then put a note below the tweet
or the X post or whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Well, actually I like that innovation, though it doesn't solve
all the problems.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
It doesn't make up for.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
The algorithm on Twitter slash x. I understand the frustration
and the UK other countries do have press counsels or
the equivalent. They don't work that well, and they wouldn't
work in the United States with the First Amendment, and
it we're not. It's not for lack of information about
what is good information. It's not the case that, oh,
if consumers could only get the good house keeping stamp
(21:04):
of approval on a story that flits across their consciousness
via their cell phone, they'd believe it. People are entertained
by all manner of the continuum of the truthful to
the greatly exaggerated.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
They always have been. I think that what that gets at.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Is what I was talking about in the beginning, which
is like, we're inundated with information. The answer is not
to police the information. It's to combat it with truthfulness, relevance,
and interestingness. And to Sarah's point, she I don't think
we've said the word class so far, but we're getting
at it. And most of the media, which reflects how
(21:42):
American politics are bifurcated on educational lines. Most of the
media is the college educated or now the quasi requirement
that you get a journalism degree, which I think is a.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Pretty bad a pretty bad development. I don't know if
you have.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
One, why why would you explain that? Well, I did
major in journalism. I took a lot of liberal arts
classes as well as minors in history, but like, why
do you think that to have a journalism degree.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Journalism used to be the province of the blue collar individual.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Most two white, two men, that's two male. That's true.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
But you could essentially join a newspaper like you would
a guild and work your way up and be a
copy boy, sometimes a copy girl. And it allowed for
a broad swath of society to serve the public via
the newspaper. It wasn't a high falutant job that required
an elite education, and it shouldn't be. And the fact
that our news, even our great news institutions, and I
(22:36):
think the New York Times does a very very good job,
and they've been getting better in the last few years.
But they're now posting the bios of their writers and
of their writers' bios. They did a survey of them
and something like over a third went to either an
IVY League school, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, or Duke. And I
(22:57):
was interested to see how many of them went to
a CUNY, Which City College of New York or a
Sunni State University of New York school.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
And the answer is to.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Wait, maybe three if you include CUNY. We're talking about
hundreds of reporters, and they kind of cover the city
like it, and they cover the state like it. They
cover the state like a person who you know, they care.
The New York Times. I'll shut up for a second,
But The New York Times has done I did this ratio,
something like a ratio of something like sixty to one
(23:27):
stories about Harvard, a school not in their state, versus
stories in one of the four flagship institutions of the
Sunny system.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, you know, I will say, just on the issue
of a journalism degree, one of the best pieces of
advice that works in journalism that I ever got was
not in a journalism class. It was from the great
Nobel Peace lay Elie Weisel, who I took a class
from in college, who said.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Trust those who seek the truth, distrust.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Those who found it, which I thought was a very
works very well in our business. You know, a lot
of people look back to a time when there were
way fewer options in the media and.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
More people trusted the people who reported the news.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yeah, you know, people like Walter Kronkite and what our
Murrow Actually, Murrow was one of the first to report
from Bukenwald concentration camp just after it was liberated in
World War Two. Listen to this.
Speaker 12 (24:17):
I pray you to believe what I have said about
Buken Wild. I have reported what I saw on heard,
but only part of it or most of it. I
have no words. If I have offended you by this
rather mild account of bukenvolved, I'm nothing the least sorry.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So, Sarah Alvarez, that is a really interesting clip to
hear right now. I think because whenever there's a war
going on, people don't always trust the words coming from
the politicians, and the media becomes all the more important
in telling people what's going on so they can make
decisions about what to do.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
I think that that is true. I think what I
would like to kind of bring us back to is
like right sizing of responsibility for different and parts of
this story.
Speaker 13 (25:02):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
I'm a local reporter. I run a local newsroom here
in Detroit, and we do you know, we have the
largest Arab population outside of the Middle East is in
Dearborn in our area. We also have a very large
Jewish population outside of the city of Detroit, but in
the metro area. So we're covering things that are relevant
to our community, and we are being very transparent about
(25:29):
how we're making choices, but we have to also rely
on national media and international media to do their jobs
so that we can interpret it. Like local reporters, we
are long past. I think we have this asymmetry problem
because people trust local reporters most because we are close
to them, They know us, and we are accountable to them.
(25:52):
But local news no longer has the resources to send
people across the country or across the world to check
out events and then report back for our audiences and
to be trusted. And there are not a lot of
partnerships between national news organizations and local news organizations. I
think public radio is an exception where you know you're
getting kind of where a local reporter is telling a
(26:16):
local audience. I trust this reporter like you can. You
can take this information. I trust it, you can trust it.
We just don't have that kind of coordination in the system.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Let's go to Will, who's in Houston, Texas. Hi, Will,
go ahead, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 10 (26:34):
Bye, it's good to be back.
Speaker 14 (26:37):
What do you know the.
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Here?
Speaker 15 (26:40):
Here's what I think is that we need to have
more unbiased news coverage, whether that's done by independent journalists
or hedge funds. I don't care as long as it
gets done. Keeping things get this in the middle makes
things a lot better for the American public and allows
more news to be spread and unbiased fashion, and that
(27:01):
allows for people to create their own thoughts. I think
NPR does a good job. Yes, they're leaning more towards
the left lately, but I think that's just the general
discussed with the current state of the Conservative Party. Not
to get political, but you know, if you're truly a
diehard Trump fan, you're not going to like anything other
than Fox News. So love NPR, love the middle, Love
(27:23):
what y'all do. I think if we have more voices
coming from you know, the general population in America and
having these discussions, we have better discussions on what you
know is currently happening in America. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, well, thank you so much, Mike.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know, Will brings up Trump, who spent and continues
to attack the press at every turn.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
How much how much of a problem.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Has that been do you think in the last however
many years, in just reducing the trust in the media
amongst so much of the country.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
It is a problem because that is a tactic of
his and it's just an impure truth, that he sets
records for lying. Not that all politicians don't lie, and
not that the lies of everyone shouldn't be tracked down,
but it is destabilizing. And the fact that it is
an effective tactic, I mean it's always been true. Spureau
agnu and pre and the Democrats and Republicans of the
(28:18):
eighteen hundreds used to pillary the press, right, that is
the fact. But Donald Trump has taken it to a
new I mean, he's developed some artistry around it. So
you'd have to tip your hat to him if most
newsrooms could still afford a hat.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
It is destabilizing. The lack of the lack of a
shared reality.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
And I'm not even talking about if you cover student
loans as a net positive or a net negative, just
a shared reality that there are student loans, or that
this is what the Weather Channel would say.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
It is.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Raining has really been stripped from us, and Donald Trump
is the symptom and the cause of so much of that.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, some of the media's trust is choose our self
inflicted tolliver, including from some of the biggest names in news.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Jeremy if you remember, back in twenty fifteen, former NBC
Nightly News anchor Brian Williams had to publicly apologize for
mischaracterizing some of his reporting during the Iraq War.
Speaker 13 (29:12):
I made a mistake and recalling the events of twelve
years ago. It did not take long to hear from
some brave men and women and the aircrews who were
also in that desert. I want to apologize. I said
I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by
RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Well well.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Brian Williams left the NBC Nightly News because of that,
although he did make a comeback on MSNBC for several
years afterwards. Tolliver, I will say the Middle has not
been hit by RPG fire. But you can rate our
podcast wherever you listen to podcasts with a five star rating.
That really makes a difference. We really appreciate you listening,
(29:54):
and we'll be right back with more of the Middle.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
This is the Middle.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I'm Jeremy Hobson asking you this hour, what can media
organizations do to regain your trust? You can call us
at eight four four Middle. I'm joined by Outlier Media
founder and editor Sarah Alvarez and Mike Pesca, longtime journalists
and host of the Gist podcast. Let's go back to
the phones and Julie, who's in ogden Utah.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Hi, Julie, what do you.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Think what can media organizations do to regain your trust?
Speaker 8 (30:22):
Hi?
Speaker 16 (30:22):
Thanks for having me on. I was thinking it would
be good if they were required to list who is
funding them or if they're funding a particular story or
funding the station, because like gen z ers and millennials
like myself, we understand capitalism and we want to know
(30:43):
like who's funding what so that we can inform ourselves.
So do you guys know of any laws or requirements
for agencies to with like say, who's funding them?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Sarah Alvarez, I'll say that to you.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Yeah, I don't think that there are any requirements. Nonprofit newsrooms,
most of them, any any one any nonprofit newsrooms that
are part of this like kind of trade group called
the Institute for Nonprofit News all list their donors and
also don't take anonymous contributions over a certain amount, and
(31:25):
I think that that's important. We list our donors on
our website. There's also just FYI, there's a great tool
that Pro Publica has put out called Nonprofit Explorer, and
if there's a nonprofit newsroom that you're interested in, you
can enter that newsroom's name into the nonprofit Explorer and
learn more about their finances there.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Let's go to Michael, who's in Cincinnati, Ohio. Michael, welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Go ahead.
Speaker 17 (31:51):
Hey, thanks so much for having no just follow on
comments too. I believe what your guests had said earlier
about accountability and the other caller about trust in the
I itself absolutely. I think you know.
Speaker 18 (32:02):
From my perspective, it seems as if too much opinion
has been mass raving around as news these days, and
I think newspapers previously did an excellent job with it
between reporting versus opinions, where if there's an editorial, they
would list it as an opinion point or an opinion
letter that somebody would toss in till these people were
aware of it. What I'd love to be able to
(32:23):
see is some sort of ranking, maybe by a third
party that would do fact check review of any one
of these sites or media outlets, giving them a squirrell.
It'skind of like if you're going to a restaurant, you
can kind of take a look at whether or not
they get an a grade, or is it a B
or C, R, D or F grade from the Health Department.
Speaker 10 (32:39):
So at least you know.
Speaker 19 (32:40):
What you're consuming, either you're consuming food or you're consuming media.
At least you know is this going to be good
for you or bad for you? And at that point
in time, having that third party rank, it would be
great to be able to see so that at least
then yes, And if an outlet wants to go off
and steal off opinions first Amendment, absolutely go ahead, have
whatever opinion you want, no problem, just don't listen to
these facts or news. So you can sidebar that and
(33:03):
then over as an overlay on the screen or on
the side of the website indicating these are opinions, big
red letters opinions, and then this is news. This is news,
just like the newspapers used to do it, following in
line with what your other color ad indicated. It'd be
great to be able to have that truth and advertising
sort of elopment so that the accountability factor can be
(33:24):
held that if there is false information misinformation, leave it
up for liability. And I'm sure there's a whole bunch
of twort and attorneys that would love to chase him
down and hold them accountable with the lawsuits. So then
all of this it will behave a little bit more.
Speaker 17 (33:42):
But anyway, so it's.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
You think about that and b grade on the news.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
So here's some news you can use.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
That service exists Stephen Grill, who ran Bill's content in
The American Lawyer. He has a new company called news Guard,
And not only does he rent and rate do you
know them?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Yet?
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Not only does the rank and rate all the outlets
you get. There's a plug in on your computer, so
it will pop up if.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
That's what you want.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
It will pop up, and they will tell you who
is trustworthy and who is not.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
And their rankings are interesting.
Speaker 6 (34:13):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
I saw recently that Al Jazeera slid down in the
rankings after a number of misstatements, and I said to myself,
that's interesting that they would they would note that, and
I got something out of that. On the other hand,
I do think and it wasn't just this caller, it
was it's this persistent notion that if we just knew
who was behind this, there wouldn't be so much misinformation disinformation, And.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
With all due respect, I think that's wrong.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
I think that first of all, most of the purveyors
of news are large publicly traded companies. MSNBC is Comcast,
and we know who the Murdochs are and they put
out Fox.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
And CNN is Warner Discovery.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
It's not a question about who these people are, what
these outlets are. The question or the reason why maybe
they're not trustworthy is they are serving the audience.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
And so there's why what you're doing in the middle
is so important.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
If we have a shared reality, if we get into
a situation where you don't want to get into a
debate if you're a liberal with your Republican friend and
just spew incorrect things, it would be very embarrassing.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
But to have that happen, you have to have.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
A conservative friend if you're a liberal. So that's why
it's an almost societal wide project.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
And you know the interesting thing is so many people
now when they have a friend who has different politics
than them, they you know, unfriend them on all their
social media, So then they have an even more of
a bubble of just the people that agree with exactly
what they think. Right, Let's go to Cheryl, who's in Northborough, Massachusetts. Hi, Cheryl,
welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 20 (35:39):
What do you think, well, I just think that they
should be facts checking everything and not just blasting things
out there. Someone says something or something happens and they
just put it all over the news and you listen
to it for like, you know, twelve hours, and then
they're backtracking themselves because what they said was only partly true,
not all of it was true. And it's frustrating. You know,
(36:02):
we just had and it's a sad situation. Northborough was
actually voted number one in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for safety,
and believe it or not, Mother's Day, we had a
child sixteen years old who was murdered at a house party.
And the information that has come out, you know, at
(36:26):
the very beginning, at three o'clock in the morning, we
get all this information and then there's more information and
then well they arrested three people, but none of them
are the ones that killed this kid. And then they
backtrack and you know, and it's just ABC, NBCCBF. When
something happens, they run with it, you know, even like
(36:48):
the Karen Reid case, which is all over the news
right now in Massachusetts. When that happened, it was probably
three days of nothing but her and then it was gone,
and then they backtracked it, and now you know, you're
listening to the trial, and it's like, what is true?
Even as far as the people that you're supposed to trust,
(37:10):
are they doing me a job? But I sure, I.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Think we've got we've got your point there. Let me
let me go to Sarah Alvarez.
Speaker 12 (37:17):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You know, that is a very good point. Some A
lot of times, especially in breaking news situations, a lot
of information comes out and it's it ends up being wrong.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
I do think that that's true. I think that that's
a really tough problem to solve. Honestly, I think that's
one of the toughest problems, is what do you do
in a breaking news situation, Because it's not only news
organizations that are rushing to be first. It's people on
social media, it's you know, influencers, it's it's a lot
of people. And I do think that we have more
(37:48):
of a value on being first than being right and
thinking that we can correct it later. But it's really
important for all of us to remember just how difficult
it is to kind of put that back in the bottle,
and it's very difficult to come back and to you
can correct something but there's been a lot of studies
that have shown that most people miss the correction and
(38:10):
stick with the incorrect information. We always say, you know,
we don't have to be first, we have to be right,
and we want to be the best. But I will
say that we're lucky because we rely on other news
organizations in Detroit to cover breaking news. I do think
that that's one of the stickiest problems when we're talking
about trust and quality.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
You know, when we talk about breaking news, I think
we should bring in the elephant in the room here,
which is social media. And we are having this conversation
at a moment when the technology is changing rapidly. The
artificial intelligence is getting so good that people can flood
our news feeds and make videos that look real but
they aren't. Makes it even more difficult to trust what
(38:50):
we're seeing, to know what's true and what isn't. First
of all, Tolliver, I know you love social media. You
look at it all the time. Do you feel like
what you're getting when you're on.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
TikTok is accurate?
Speaker 3 (39:04):
No, I don't, and I don't. But then I also like,
on the flip side of that will regurgitate a lot
of those things of me if I'm a conversation at
a bar or something like that, because you know, I
saw it really quickly and I didn't think to look
deeper into it.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Mike, how do you.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Deal with with the sort of like AI social media
keeping trust in the media when so many people are
getting their news from a place that is not fact check,
that isn't staffed by journalists.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
Even yeah, I just assume, and this has always been
my experience, it's going to be of such apparent lower quality.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
I mean, it.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
Serves it's information, but it's really more habituation into data
or the dopamine hit that one gets from seeing something
that's you know, labeled nonfiction, but that's not really news.
That's not the nourishment that real news can provide. It
leads to horrible effects.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Right.
Speaker 5 (39:54):
There was a book about propaganda written nothing is true
and everything is possible. That's the goal of the propagandist.
And even if our social media TikTok isn't set out
to inculcate us in that or have us steeped in
that idea, that's I think what's going on in our society.
So many people as just a guard against this onslaught
(40:15):
of information, say nothing is true. Everything is possible. But
to answer the question that you've been asking every as
a prompt every segment, what should we do? I would
say in a sentence, us, if we are the people
in the media, and I think Sarah is doing this,
we should put out media that is not for us,
but is for them.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
Who is them?
Speaker 5 (40:36):
It is the audience. It is the audience we have
need to serve. It is the audience we want to serve,
and it's not an imagined audience. Wouldn't it be great
if people knew that we have to think about who
the audience is. Give them what they need, what they
don't even know they want, but not do it for us,
Do it for them.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Let's go to Max, who's in ann Arbor, Michigan. Max,
welcome to the middle. What do you think what can
the media do to regain your trust?
Speaker 21 (41:02):
Well, what I think the media needs to do is
become more explicit about its bias. I think that there
is no such thing as unbiased media. Media is made
by people. Everyone has an opinion. Sometimes it can't help
but have an opinion. And returning to an era where
media embraced its position and embraced its particular biases on
different subjects. Would make it much easier to consume media.
(41:26):
It would make things easier to read between the lines.
It would be more in line with the kind of
historic era of media. You know, one hundred years ago,
you would have a socialist paper, you would have a
right wing paper, you would have a sort of centrist
business liberal paper, and when you read each one of those,
(41:47):
you would know where they're coming from and what sort
of perspectives they bring. And returning to something like that,
I think would be greatly beneficial.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Do you think, though, Max, that even though obviously journalists
are all human beings, that they at least have an
obligation to try and think outside of their own bias.
Speaker 8 (42:09):
I think that.
Speaker 21 (42:12):
Your biases and your personal background will color what you
do no matter what. If you report on especially pressing matters,
the very important things that we see in the world today,
you're going to have thoughts on it. Particularly. You know,
there's been four major like earth shattering events of the
(42:32):
last twenty years nine to eleven, the Recession, Trump, COVID,
and we may be getting like a fifth one right
now with the war in Israel. And everybody has a
different experience going through it. They have their own opinions
on what should have been done to resolve it, and
approaching those the answers to these things that happen in
(42:54):
the world, we need to be clear about what a
perspectives are on it.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, let's go to Sarah. Sarah, your thoughts on what
Max had to say there.
Speaker 6 (43:03):
I think there's something to it. Well. I also don't
think that there's like a lot of news organizations out
there hiding where they're coming from. Right, It's not like
we don't know where Fox News is coming from and
we don't know where MSNBC is coming from. But I
do think that news organizations should be transparent about what
their goals are or what their mission is right, what
(43:24):
they're hoping to achieve with the information that they are supplying.
But I also think that a return to based like
more explicitly biased and more polarizing coverage is not going
to solve anything in this environment. One thing that we do,
and that I think some other news organizations are beginning
(43:45):
to do, is a lot of survey work on what
people actually want and need. That is I think much
more valuable so that it helps control for the bias
of the reporters. If your goal is to serve people
and fill these particular information gaps, it's much less important
what you think because your job is clear and has
(44:06):
been defined by the community.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, let's get more with that.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
And I know as a reporter, when I go to
a situation and my orientation is not of objectivity, I
agree that doesn't exist. But real open mind in this
real fairness, my guiding light is not ooh, I got
to formulate my own opinion or propagate my opinion, but
I got to figure out what's the best way to
think about this is and to have other people think
about it.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
I'm a much better reporter.
Speaker 9 (44:30):
You know.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Our job shouldn't be to tell people what to think,
but how to think.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Let's get to one more call here. Lucy is in
Forest Park, Georgia. Hi, Lucy, go.
Speaker 14 (44:39):
Ahead him wondering and thank you for having me. What
is the criteria for you all deciding that the media
has not been truthful or objective. I think it's great
that you're trying to do the middle ground, but I
just wonder what the criteria is for deciding what is
(45:01):
middle ground and what is not.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Lucy, thank you for that, Sarah, I'll just let you
have the last word on that briefly.
Speaker 6 (45:07):
Oh well, thanks so much. And yeah, I think that
it is easier. This is why the Weather channel is popular, right.
It is easier to figure out what is true when
you can verify it yourself. So when news organizations work
harder to provide information to people that is relevant to
them and that they can easily see whether it is
true or not and whether it matter or not, we
(45:29):
will do better.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Well.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
On that note, I want to thank my guests Outlier
Media founder and editor Sarah Alvarez and Mike Pesca, host
of the Gist podcast. Thank you both, welcome and Tolliver.
Next week we're going to be leading it to the
Memorial Day holiday and we're going to talk about what
that holiday is actually about.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, we want to know what Memorial Day means to
you and whether you spend time thinking about Americans who
make the ultimate sacrifice for the country. Will be joined
by our former Secretary of Veterans Affairs as well as
a gold Star mom. It'll be a show you won't
want to miss. You can call us at eight four
four four, six four three through five three or write
in that Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
And while you're there, sign up for a weekly newsletter.
The Middle is brought to you by Longnook Media, distributed
by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by
Joann Jennings, Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, and John Barth. Our
intern is an Akadessler, our technical director is Jason Croft,
and our theme music was composed by Andrew Hay. Thanks
also to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia, and the more than
(46:24):
four hundred and ten public radio stations making it possible
for people across the country to listen to The Middle.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Come see us live at the Palace Theater in Waterbury,
Connecticut on June three. Ticket information, We'll be up at
Listen Toothmiddle dot com and I will talk to you
next week.
Speaker 10 (47:01):
Bids make use of the stakes
The Middle is supported by Journalism Funding Partners, a nonprofit
organization striving to increase the sustainability of local journalism by
building connections between donors and news organizations. More information on
how you can support The Middle at listen to Themiddle
dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm Jeremy Hobson, joined as always by our house DJ Tolliver. Tolliver,
do you know what the most trusted name in news is?
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Uh Elon Musk, Wendy Williams.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
No, No, actually no, it's actually the Weather Channel. That is,
according to an economist, pull the people. They believe what
they see on the Weather Channel more than anything else,
which is very interesting for our topic.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
As you know, Tlliver, this show The Middle is trying
to do a number of things. First and foremost, as
we always say, we're trying to elevate the voices of
people in the geographic and political middle into the national conversation.
We want to get away from the extremes and focus
on the often ignored people who live outside the.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Media echo chamber.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
We also want to be an outlet that is trusted
across the political spectrum.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
We're here in.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Good faith trying to have conversations about the big issues
in a civil way, and we welcome different points of
view in the hope that we can earn listeners. Trust
and trust in the media is near record lows. A
recent Gallup poll found only thirty two percent of the
population has a great deal or a fair amount of
confidence that the media reports the news in a full,
(01:27):
fair and accurate way. So our question this hour, how
can news organizations regain your trust? Tolliver, what is the
number for people to call in?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three or right to
us at Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
And the calls are coming already in so let's meet
our panel. Mike Pesca is a longtime journalist who currently
hosts the daily podcast that Just Mike. Great to have
you in the Middle.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Oh, thanks for having me on, Seanefully, I have never
worked at the Weather Channel, but my application is in
It's not too late.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
And Sarah Alvarez is also as founder and editor of
Outlier Media, which is a nonprofit news organization focused on
serving the people of Detroit.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Sarah, great to have you in the Middle as well.
Speaker 6 (02:09):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Good to be here, and before we get to the phones,
let's diagnose the problem if we can.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Why don't people trust the media as much as they
used to, Mike Pesco.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
They've proven themselves not worthy of the people's trust, and
it is because we are a wash, as in, we.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Are a washing information, but we don't really have meaning.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
And so in the nineteen seventies or nineteen eighties, our
three broadcast channels and our big city evening paper and
morning paper, they had a bit of a monopoly on
the information that people got, and they took that seriously,
and they knew that everyone would be reading their publications
or tuning in. So if you presented a worldview that
was just seemed upside down to a large portion of
(02:50):
your city, you would suffer. Now you're incentivized to serve
every niche and a hugely successful it's just think you
usually successful cable station like MSNBC. Read a big article
on it and it's left word tilt in the New
York Times today. That could draw when their ratings are
going gaga, that could draw one and a half percent
(03:12):
of the American viewing public.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
So they're not to pick on.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
MSNBC, but everyone is incentivized to play for a niche
to play against this backdrop of so much attentuated attention
spans that it is very hard to stick to the
stick to the virtue of being honest, truthful, relevant and interesting,
(03:37):
and that's what you have to do, and the incentives
are very much aligned against it.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
I will say it could be a small audience, but
as you know, MSNBC and CNN and Fox News are
on the wall in just about every major news organization
all day long, so the other journalists are still watching
those channels. Sarah Alvarez, what do you think, why do
people not trust them media as much as they used to?
Speaker 6 (04:02):
Well, I think there's something to what Mike was saying,
But I think that that question of irrelevancy is really important,
and I do want to make a distinction. While national
news might not be trusted, local news is much more
trusted than national news, and that's true across the board.
(04:23):
It did not surprise me at all that the Weather
channel is the most trusted outlet, because weather is something
that people need to know every day, even though we
have it on our phones. And I think that goes
to like a very important question about what is the
purpose of the news at Outlier, we very much think
(04:44):
that our first goal is to fill information gaps, So
we're really trying to give people information that is directly
relevant to them, like Mike said, but that they can
also use. And we make sure that journalists intervene when
they have a problem that they can't solve, and we
run a text message based information service in addition to
doing accountability work and culture coverage. So I do think
(05:08):
it's it is not just the tilt, it's also what
are these news organizations doing, What are they giving and
are they just covering events or are they really working
to provide a service.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Let's go to the phones because there are a lot
of calls coming in. Deborah is on the line from Minneapolis. Hi, Debrah,
Welcome to the middle.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
What do you think, Well, I was speaking with a
gentleman earlier and I just said that I feel like
the coverage of the pandemic was not a broad view
of the pandemic, and I feel like there are a
lot of alternative ways to take care of yourself, supplementation, acupuncture, naturopathic,
(05:49):
and I don't feel like that was covered interesting.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So you believe that the media was too one sided
in coverage of the pandemic. Mike Pesca, You know, I
remember covering the pandemic every single day, and the doctors
were saying, you know, thank you for talking about the
value of the vaccines, for example, thank you for covering
how important it is for people to do. This is
ear in the early days of the pandemic. But as
the pandemic went on, of course, it became so politicized
(06:16):
that some people thought the media was doing the wrong
thing by talking about various aspects.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
I'm sympathetic to the caller's point, I really am. I
don't think that the media did well. Of course, when
we say the media, we mean both Joe Rogan and
ABC's this Week, who had must At Fauci on twelve times,
So how could they both not have done well? And
I think we do defall to the mainstream media or
the big networks and the big cable channels, and we
(06:41):
trust them to get it right, or to at least
have enough humility to say this is the best information
that we're going on at the time. And so I
don't think they did the second thing as much as
they needed to. I literally don't think that they thought
it was only the best information at the time. I
think that when lockdowns were prescribed, there was huge agreement
(07:04):
that this was necessary. In retrospect, I happened to think
it was necessary, but it's also a bit of a
closer call, and some countries that didn't go with lockdowns succeeded.
And then you have the question of how long did
the lockdowns need to go? And you had entire school
systems that were tearing each other apart over this question.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
And I do think that most people.
Speaker 5 (07:23):
Who couldn't be more impassionate about this and were also
really knowledgeable about what was going on in their schools
would tune to maybe the national media and see Fauci,
who I think was doing the best job he could,
but talking without the undertone of we're trying our best
and we might be getting it wrong. I never heard
any of that. I heard so much certainty that in
(07:44):
retrospect couldn't have all been true. And so I think
now the media, sorry the people, look back on that era,
and many many of them have problems with how the
media covered the pandemic, even if, like you, I think
that vaccines were great and a miracle, and I don't
think it I know and it saved hundreds of thousands
of lives.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Let's go to ad who's in Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Hi, Ed, welcome to the middle. What what can the
media do to regain your trust?
Speaker 8 (08:09):
Well, we need more independent media. We got to get
rid of this corporate media that we have out there.
It's strictly looking at how bit you know? How do
I not offend my advertisers? And the media groups need
to provide more journalists with more time to dig into stories.
(08:32):
And the government, quite honestly, if they want to cover
something up, they just don't respond to feuer requests over
and over and over again until finally it's out of
the news cycle and therefore gets ignored. It's horrible, Ed.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Where do you Where do you get?
Speaker 8 (08:52):
What media?
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Do you trust?
Speaker 7 (08:54):
Ed?
Speaker 8 (08:55):
Well, I can get my news from all over the place.
And one person who because of his own demons, I'm sure,
but I'm not positive. I don't know him personally, Charlie Leduff,
a Pulp Surprise living journalist. He had his own show
going on here in Detroit. He had to pay for
his own requests that he did stream lancing. It took
(09:18):
him almost a year to get them. Yeah, and then
he had the fact chet. When he's trying to fact
check it, he's being blocked at every avenue possible.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
And thank you for that. I think we've got it there.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And Sarah Alvarez, I don't know if you know the
person that ed was talking about there, but he says
too much corporate greed in the media should be more
independently focused, like what you're doing, right.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
So yeah, I would definitely suggest that you look about
liar media. And I also think that there is I
do think that the point is taken that people feel
pretty disconnected from accountability and not as powerful as they
really are. We run a program at Outlier and it's
(10:02):
run in sixteen other places across the country called the
Documentar's Program. The Documentar's Program started out of Chicago. We
were the second news organization to take it on. And
what we do is train people and then pay them
to cover government meetings and community meetings. They're paid eighteen
(10:23):
dollars an hour. They take notes at these meetings, they
live tweet these meetings. Those notes are edited by two
different editors at one of nine different news organizations in
the city, and then they become part of the public
record and they also help impact the coverage, but they're
used on their own and it is. We have more
(10:44):
than five hundred documenters working with us in Detroit and
it's become an incredibly powerful group of people who are
just normal Detroiters. But I think have started to work
with news organizations to make people more accountable to them,
and I do think that that makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, you got to have money for that.
Speaker 6 (11:04):
Sure, we fundraise for that. We're a nonprofit news organization
and we have to do fundraising. I do think that
that is a better model than you know, hedge fund
backed newspapers for example. But it's not you can have
poor quality news coming out of a nonprofit. It is
really on news organizations to make sure that they are
delivering high quality, actionable, valuable information every day.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Just checking in on what we have coming in online, Tolliver,
I see that John in Chicago writes, mistrust, conspiracy, and
fear is the point of conservative media.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
So it can't be fixed.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
When it is working as planned as for NPR, it
can stop endlessly focusing focusing on what hell monsters all
white men are. But I love what the middle is
trying to do. Mike We're going to get to NPR
in a moment after the break, but I mean, yeah, anyway,
we'll get to We'll get to NPR. We have a
lot more to come, but Tolliver, I do want to
(12:00):
and our listeners. To the Middle is available as a
podcast in partnership with iHeart Podcasts on the iHeart app
or wherever you listen to podcasts. We have a lot
more to come, and we'll be right back with more
of the middle.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
This is the Middle. I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
If you're just tuning in the Middle as a national
call in show, we're focused on elevating voices from the
middle geographically, politically, and philosophically, or maybe you just want
to meet in the middle. This hour, we're asking you
what can media organizations do to regain your trust? Tolliver,
what's the number to call in?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
It's eight four four four Middle. That's eight four four
four six four three three five three. You can also
write to us at Listen to the Middle dot com
or on social media.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I'm joined by Outlier Media founder and editor Sarah Alvarez
and Mike Pesca, longtime journalists and host of the Gist podcasts.
And before we get back to the phones, let's talk
about NPR as we said we would. Now, this show
is not distributed by NPR, but it is on NPR stations,
and NPR was in the news recently because of Uri Berliner,
the former NPR editor, who said the network had lost
(12:56):
the trust of Americans because it was two one sided. Basically,
that's he meant was the left. Here is what he
had to say during an interview on News Nation.
Speaker 9 (13:05):
Most people are not locked into ideologies, and I think
many people are just sick of it. And this one
of the reasons people distrusts so much of the media,
whether it's legacy media, whether it's conservative media. You know
what you're getting. It's all pre digested and spit out
to you. You know what the take is going to be.
(13:25):
And I think it's ultimately unsatisfying, and for a vast
part of this nation, they don't want it.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Mike Peska, I remember speaking with journalists at a public
radio station a couple of years ago, and they were
trying to decide whether they should ever allow their member
of Congress on the air again because this person had
voted against certifying the results of the last election. My
thought to them was of course you have to have
that person on challenge them, but they're elected to represent
(13:52):
all of your listeners. There are many who disagree with that.
What do you think about that? What do you think
about NPR and what Uri Berliner's critique.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Was, Well, if that station decided the answer was no,
they could still call themselves a radio station. I don't
see how they could call themselves a public radio station
without violating some truth and labeling laws that I agree with.
So much of what Ury had to say is going
to be on my show. We did an over hour
long interview a couple of days ago, and we're airing that.
(14:23):
I don't think that the exact and what he was
mostly talking about was a lack of viewpoint diversity, and
he positive that it was mostly a lack of Republicans
or conservatives.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
I wouldn't even say that that was so true.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
I think for a long time, for a few years,
and especially after the election of Donald Trump, and then
things accelerated during the reckoning and the pandemic and the
death and murder of George Floyd, there was a social
justice activism lens that so informed so many pieces. And
so maybe this gets to your listener who talked about
(14:59):
the white men and healthscape. But there was a jargon,
there was a doctrinaire mindset, and it was very, very
hard to ever escape it. Now sometimes I enjoy all
ideologies and seeing the world through the prism of say,
white supremacy is interesting to me as far as it
is accurate and relevant.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
But you have to be truthful, accurate.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
And relevant when things when the accuracy of things began
to be stretched, or when the relevance of some stories
was I would I very often would say to myself, Okay,
this one's not for me, and then the next story
would come down on the radio and say, Okay, this
one's not for me.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
And then after a while you're like, maybe the network's
not for me.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
Listenership has dropped by thirty percent, their podcasts aren't doing well,
and they'll talk about true things like drivetime listenership got
hit hard during the pandemic, and just people are shifting
away from traditional ways of listening.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
But if you don't think about.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
Your programming is the reason why people aren't listening, You're
not doing your job.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
You're not being the public. In public radio, as they
use to say.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Let's go to the phones, and Marvin is in North Hempstead,
Long Island.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
That's where the public enemy's from.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I don't believe the high is that right, Marvin?
Speaker 10 (16:11):
Hi?
Speaker 11 (16:12):
Yeah, I have a suggest I want to pass along
a suggestion I heard someone make recently that the New
York Times, the Washington Post, and sources like the Economist,
Wall Street Journal lowered their paywalls during the election season
so that people can get access to their content for free.
Because one of the problems is the junk news is free.
(16:35):
You can get that anywhere, but the quality, really good
sources like the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall
Street Journal, you got to pay for that. So I
think I'd like to know what the guests think of
that idea lowering their paywalls.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It's the point. It's a great point, Marvin. Sarah Alvarez.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I'll go to you and just say, of course, you know,
social media, where so many people are getting their media
right now, is free for the most part. Whereas the
news organizations where you have journalists that are checking facts
and doing all that stuff, they cost money a.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Lot of times.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
Well, yeah, but NPR is free too. To the earlier point, yes,
and I don't. I would like to kind of push
back on that, because I think one of the problems
that a lot of news organizations have is that they're
actually going after too narrow of an audience. They're going
after only a certain kind of person and the person
(17:33):
that they're going after, and this is too bad that
this I came from public radio too, right, that they
that station, many stations are going after people who they
think can contribute and who can become members, right, And
so they're leaving out a lot of people and their concerns.
So it is not surprising that what you get is
(17:53):
an echo chamber, and people who have a lot of
money are overserved by media. They have too much information,
and then we have a lot of people around the
country that can't get information that they desperately need to survive.
And back to the pandemic, I think that's when I
talk about information gaps. What I'm talking about is that
(18:15):
is the state that we were in at the beginning
of the pandemic, when we did not know what to
do in order to keep ourselves safe. There are people
who live in information gaps all across this country every day,
and news organizations need to work harder to fill those gaps.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Let's go to Randy and Pittsburgh. Randy, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 10 (18:34):
Go ahead, Hi, how do you do? Thank you so much?
What would restore my customer? News actually has surprisingly little
to do with the news organizations themselves. Basically, you have
like about a quarter of the population who is being
said and constantly broadcasting massive amounts of disinformation. So what
(18:57):
would really improve I think things if you had I
don't know, for for lack of a better term, truthfulness
laws for social media, for stuff that you're allowed to say,
for stuff that's allowed to be broadcast. I mean asking
what any given news organization can do to improve trust
in the is right now with without addressing that It's
(19:17):
kind of like saying why these antibiotics aren't working in
a room that's filled with uranium two thirty five.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
But I guess who would police the social media if
you were going to try to keep it factual?
Speaker 10 (19:30):
That's that's a good question, you know, I I mean there,
I know there's there could think the things about, uh,
if there's truth in labeling laws, for example, I'm not
an expert on this, but I'm just brainstorming here. If
there is something like Uh, this is news at these
(19:52):
criteria admits. It's been fact checked by six organizations. By these,
it has this process. This is there no listen, even
if you don't believe it, it has gone through an
editorial process that has been verified by fat checkers. Simply
saying it's news because seven million people repeat alive that
somebody told that's just like, that's just a bulkern his opinion.
(20:16):
Forgive me for.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Well, no, that's that's it's a good point, Randy. Let
me let me bring it to Mike Pesca. Mike, you know,
it seems like the way that we do that on
social media when when they try to show you what's
true and what's not is a crowd.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Uh, it's like the crowd gets.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
To decide and then put a note below the tweet
or the X post or whatever.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Well, actually I like that innovation, though it doesn't solve
all the problems.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
It doesn't make up for.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
The algorithm on Twitter slash x. I understand the frustration
and the UK other countries do have press counsels or
the equivalent. They don't work that well, and they wouldn't
work in the United States with the First Amendment, and
it we're not. It's not for lack of information about
what is good information. It's not the case that, oh,
if consumers could only get the good house keeping stamp
(21:04):
of approval on a story that flits across their consciousness
via their cell phone, they'd believe it. People are entertained
by all manner of the continuum of the truthful to
the greatly exaggerated.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
They always have been. I think that what that gets at.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Is what I was talking about in the beginning, which
is like, we're inundated with information. The answer is not
to police the information. It's to combat it with truthfulness, relevance,
and interestingness. And to Sarah's point, she I don't think
we've said the word class so far, but we're getting
at it. And most of the media, which reflects how
(21:42):
American politics are bifurcated on educational lines. Most of the
media is the college educated or now the quasi requirement
that you get a journalism degree, which I think is a.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
Pretty bad a pretty bad development. I don't know if
you have.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
One, why why would you explain that? Well, I did
major in journalism. I took a lot of liberal arts
classes as well as minors in history, but like, why
do you think that to have a journalism degree.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
Journalism used to be the province of the blue collar individual.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Most two white, two men, that's two male. That's true.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
But you could essentially join a newspaper like you would
a guild and work your way up and be a
copy boy, sometimes a copy girl. And it allowed for
a broad swath of society to serve the public via
the newspaper. It wasn't a high falutant job that required
an elite education, and it shouldn't be. And the fact
that our news, even our great news institutions, and I
(22:36):
think the New York Times does a very very good job,
and they've been getting better in the last few years.
But they're now posting the bios of their writers and
of their writers' bios. They did a survey of them
and something like over a third went to either an
IVY League school, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, or Duke. And I
(22:57):
was interested to see how many of them went to
a CUNY, Which City College of New York or a
Sunni State University of New York school.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
And the answer is to.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
Wait, maybe three if you include CUNY. We're talking about
hundreds of reporters, and they kind of cover the city
like it, and they cover the state like it. They
cover the state like a person who you know, they care.
The New York Times. I'll shut up for a second,
But The New York Times has done I did this ratio,
something like a ratio of something like sixty to one
(23:27):
stories about Harvard, a school not in their state, versus
stories in one of the four flagship institutions of the
Sunny system.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Yeah, you know, I will say, just on the issue
of a journalism degree, one of the best pieces of
advice that works in journalism that I ever got was
not in a journalism class. It was from the great
Nobel Peace lay Elie Weisel, who I took a class
from in college, who said.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Trust those who seek the truth, distrust.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Those who found it, which I thought was a very
works very well in our business. You know, a lot
of people look back to a time when there were
way fewer options in the media and.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
More people trusted the people who reported the news.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yeah, you know, people like Walter Kronkite and what our
Murrow Actually, Murrow was one of the first to report
from Bukenwald concentration camp just after it was liberated in
World War Two. Listen to this.
Speaker 12 (24:17):
I pray you to believe what I have said about
Buken Wild. I have reported what I saw on heard,
but only part of it or most of it. I
have no words. If I have offended you by this
rather mild account of bukenvolved, I'm nothing the least sorry.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
So, Sarah Alvarez, that is a really interesting clip to
hear right now. I think because whenever there's a war
going on, people don't always trust the words coming from
the politicians, and the media becomes all the more important
in telling people what's going on so they can make
decisions about what to do.
Speaker 6 (24:50):
I think that that is true. I think what I
would like to kind of bring us back to is
like right sizing of responsibility for different and parts of
this story.
Speaker 13 (25:02):
Right.
Speaker 6 (25:02):
I'm a local reporter. I run a local newsroom here
in Detroit, and we do you know, we have the
largest Arab population outside of the Middle East is in
Dearborn in our area. We also have a very large
Jewish population outside of the city of Detroit, but in
the metro area. So we're covering things that are relevant
to our community, and we are being very transparent about
(25:29):
how we're making choices, but we have to also rely
on national media and international media to do their jobs
so that we can interpret it. Like local reporters, we
are long past. I think we have this asymmetry problem
because people trust local reporters most because we are close
to them, They know us, and we are accountable to them.
(25:52):
But local news no longer has the resources to send
people across the country or across the world to check
out events and then report back for our audiences and
to be trusted. And there are not a lot of
partnerships between national news organizations and local news organizations. I
think public radio is an exception where you know you're
getting kind of where a local reporter is telling a
(26:16):
local audience. I trust this reporter like you can. You
can take this information. I trust it, you can trust it.
We just don't have that kind of coordination in the system.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Let's go to Will, who's in Houston, Texas. Hi, Will,
go ahead, welcome to the middle.
Speaker 10 (26:34):
Bye, it's good to be back.
Speaker 14 (26:37):
What do you know the.
Speaker 8 (26:40):
Here?
Speaker 15 (26:40):
Here's what I think is that we need to have
more unbiased news coverage, whether that's done by independent journalists
or hedge funds. I don't care as long as it
gets done. Keeping things get this in the middle makes
things a lot better for the American public and allows
more news to be spread and unbiased fashion, and that
(27:01):
allows for people to create their own thoughts. I think
NPR does a good job. Yes, they're leaning more towards
the left lately, but I think that's just the general
discussed with the current state of the Conservative Party. Not
to get political, but you know, if you're truly a
diehard Trump fan, you're not going to like anything other
than Fox News. So love NPR, love the middle, Love
(27:23):
what y'all do. I think if we have more voices
coming from you know, the general population in America and
having these discussions, we have better discussions on what you
know is currently happening in America. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, well, thank you so much, Mike.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know, Will brings up Trump, who spent and continues
to attack the press at every turn.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
How much how much of a problem.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Has that been do you think in the last however
many years, in just reducing the trust in the media
amongst so much of the country.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
It is a problem because that is a tactic of
his and it's just an impure truth, that he sets
records for lying. Not that all politicians don't lie, and
not that the lies of everyone shouldn't be tracked down,
but it is destabilizing. And the fact that it is
an effective tactic, I mean it's always been true. Spureau
agnu and pre and the Democrats and Republicans of the
(28:18):
eighteen hundreds used to pillary the press, right, that is
the fact. But Donald Trump has taken it to a
new I mean, he's developed some artistry around it. So
you'd have to tip your hat to him if most
newsrooms could still afford a hat.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
It is destabilizing. The lack of the lack of a
shared reality.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
And I'm not even talking about if you cover student
loans as a net positive or a net negative, just
a shared reality that there are student loans, or that
this is what the Weather Channel would say.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
It is.
Speaker 5 (28:51):
Raining has really been stripped from us, and Donald Trump
is the symptom and the cause of so much of that.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, some of the media's trust is choose our self
inflicted tolliver, including from some of the biggest names in news.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Jeremy if you remember, back in twenty fifteen, former NBC
Nightly News anchor Brian Williams had to publicly apologize for
mischaracterizing some of his reporting during the Iraq War.
Speaker 13 (29:12):
I made a mistake and recalling the events of twelve
years ago. It did not take long to hear from
some brave men and women and the aircrews who were
also in that desert. I want to apologize. I said
I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by
RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Well well.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Brian Williams left the NBC Nightly News because of that,
although he did make a comeback on MSNBC for several
years afterwards. Tolliver, I will say the Middle has not
been hit by RPG fire. But you can rate our
podcast wherever you listen to podcasts with a five star rating.
That really makes a difference. We really appreciate you listening,
(29:54):
and we'll be right back with more of the Middle.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
This is the Middle.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I'm Jeremy Hobson asking you this hour, what can media
organizations do to regain your trust? You can call us
at eight four four Middle. I'm joined by Outlier Media
founder and editor Sarah Alvarez and Mike Pesca, longtime journalists
and host of the Gist podcast. Let's go back to
the phones and Julie, who's in ogden Utah.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Hi, Julie, what do you.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Think what can media organizations do to regain your trust?
Speaker 8 (30:22):
Hi?
Speaker 16 (30:22):
Thanks for having me on. I was thinking it would
be good if they were required to list who is
funding them or if they're funding a particular story or
funding the station, because like gen z ers and millennials
like myself, we understand capitalism and we want to know
(30:43):
like who's funding what so that we can inform ourselves.
So do you guys know of any laws or requirements
for agencies to with like say, who's funding them?
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Sarah Alvarez, I'll say that to you.
Speaker 6 (31:01):
Yeah, I don't think that there are any requirements. Nonprofit newsrooms,
most of them, any any one any nonprofit newsrooms that
are part of this like kind of trade group called
the Institute for Nonprofit News all list their donors and
also don't take anonymous contributions over a certain amount, and
(31:25):
I think that that's important. We list our donors on
our website. There's also just FYI, there's a great tool
that Pro Publica has put out called Nonprofit Explorer, and
if there's a nonprofit newsroom that you're interested in, you
can enter that newsroom's name into the nonprofit Explorer and
learn more about their finances there.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Let's go to Michael, who's in Cincinnati, Ohio. Michael, welcome
to the middle.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Go ahead.
Speaker 17 (31:51):
Hey, thanks so much for having no just follow on
comments too. I believe what your guests had said earlier
about accountability and the other caller about trust in the
I itself absolutely. I think you know.
Speaker 18 (32:02):
From my perspective, it seems as if too much opinion
has been mass raving around as news these days, and
I think newspapers previously did an excellent job with it
between reporting versus opinions, where if there's an editorial, they
would list it as an opinion point or an opinion
letter that somebody would toss in till these people were
aware of it. What I'd love to be able to
(32:23):
see is some sort of ranking, maybe by a third
party that would do fact check review of any one
of these sites or media outlets, giving them a squirrell.
It'skind of like if you're going to a restaurant, you
can kind of take a look at whether or not
they get an a grade, or is it a B
or C, R, D or F grade from the Health Department.
Speaker 10 (32:39):
So at least you know.
Speaker 19 (32:40):
What you're consuming, either you're consuming food or you're consuming media.
At least you know is this going to be good
for you or bad for you? And at that point
in time, having that third party rank, it would be
great to be able to see so that at least
then yes, And if an outlet wants to go off
and steal off opinions first Amendment, absolutely go ahead, have
whatever opinion you want, no problem, just don't listen to
these facts or news. So you can sidebar that and
(33:03):
then over as an overlay on the screen or on
the side of the website indicating these are opinions, big
red letters opinions, and then this is news. This is news,
just like the newspapers used to do it, following in
line with what your other color ad indicated. It'd be
great to be able to have that truth and advertising
sort of elopment so that the accountability factor can be
(33:24):
held that if there is false information misinformation, leave it
up for liability. And I'm sure there's a whole bunch
of twort and attorneys that would love to chase him
down and hold them accountable with the lawsuits. So then
all of this it will behave a little bit more.
Speaker 17 (33:42):
But anyway, so it's.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
You think about that and b grade on the news.
Speaker 4 (33:49):
So here's some news you can use.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
That service exists Stephen Grill, who ran Bill's content in
The American Lawyer. He has a new company called news Guard,
And not only does he rent and rate do you
know them?
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Yet?
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Not only does the rank and rate all the outlets
you get. There's a plug in on your computer, so
it will pop up if.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
That's what you want.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
It will pop up, and they will tell you who
is trustworthy and who is not.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
And their rankings are interesting.
Speaker 6 (34:13):
You know.
Speaker 5 (34:13):
I saw recently that Al Jazeera slid down in the
rankings after a number of misstatements, and I said to myself,
that's interesting that they would they would note that, and
I got something out of that. On the other hand,
I do think and it wasn't just this caller, it
was it's this persistent notion that if we just knew
who was behind this, there wouldn't be so much misinformation disinformation, And.
Speaker 4 (34:33):
With all due respect, I think that's wrong.
Speaker 5 (34:35):
I think that first of all, most of the purveyors
of news are large publicly traded companies. MSNBC is Comcast,
and we know who the Murdochs are and they put
out Fox.
Speaker 4 (34:46):
And CNN is Warner Discovery.
Speaker 5 (34:48):
It's not a question about who these people are, what
these outlets are. The question or the reason why maybe
they're not trustworthy is they are serving the audience.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
And so there's why what you're doing in the middle
is so important.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
If we have a shared reality, if we get into
a situation where you don't want to get into a
debate if you're a liberal with your Republican friend and
just spew incorrect things, it would be very embarrassing.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
But to have that happen, you have to have.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
A conservative friend if you're a liberal. So that's why
it's an almost societal wide project.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
And you know the interesting thing is so many people
now when they have a friend who has different politics
than them, they you know, unfriend them on all their
social media, So then they have an even more of
a bubble of just the people that agree with exactly
what they think. Right, Let's go to Cheryl, who's in Northborough, Massachusetts. Hi, Cheryl,
welcome to the Middle.
Speaker 20 (35:39):
What do you think, well, I just think that they
should be facts checking everything and not just blasting things
out there. Someone says something or something happens and they
just put it all over the news and you listen
to it for like, you know, twelve hours, and then
they're backtracking themselves because what they said was only partly true,
not all of it was true. And it's frustrating. You know,
(36:02):
we just had and it's a sad situation. Northborough was
actually voted number one in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for safety,
and believe it or not, Mother's Day, we had a
child sixteen years old who was murdered at a house party.
And the information that has come out, you know, at
(36:26):
the very beginning, at three o'clock in the morning, we
get all this information and then there's more information and
then well they arrested three people, but none of them
are the ones that killed this kid. And then they
backtrack and you know, and it's just ABC, NBCCBF. When
something happens, they run with it, you know, even like
(36:48):
the Karen Reid case, which is all over the news
right now in Massachusetts. When that happened, it was probably
three days of nothing but her and then it was gone,
and then they backtracked it, and now you know, you're
listening to the trial, and it's like, what is true?
Even as far as the people that you're supposed to trust,
(37:10):
are they doing me a job? But I sure, I.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Think we've got we've got your point there. Let me
let me go to Sarah Alvarez.
Speaker 12 (37:17):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You know, that is a very good point. Some A
lot of times, especially in breaking news situations, a lot
of information comes out and it's it ends up being wrong.
Speaker 6 (37:26):
I do think that that's true. I think that that's
a really tough problem to solve. Honestly, I think that's
one of the toughest problems, is what do you do
in a breaking news situation, Because it's not only news
organizations that are rushing to be first. It's people on
social media, it's you know, influencers, it's it's a lot
of people. And I do think that we have more
(37:48):
of a value on being first than being right and
thinking that we can correct it later. But it's really
important for all of us to remember just how difficult
it is to kind of put that back in the bottle,
and it's very difficult to come back and to you
can correct something but there's been a lot of studies
that have shown that most people miss the correction and
(38:10):
stick with the incorrect information. We always say, you know,
we don't have to be first, we have to be right,
and we want to be the best. But I will
say that we're lucky because we rely on other news
organizations in Detroit to cover breaking news. I do think
that that's one of the stickiest problems when we're talking
about trust and quality.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
You know, when we talk about breaking news, I think
we should bring in the elephant in the room here,
which is social media. And we are having this conversation
at a moment when the technology is changing rapidly. The
artificial intelligence is getting so good that people can flood
our news feeds and make videos that look real but
they aren't. Makes it even more difficult to trust what
(38:50):
we're seeing, to know what's true and what isn't. First
of all, Tolliver, I know you love social media. You
look at it all the time. Do you feel like
what you're getting when you're on.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
TikTok is accurate?
Speaker 3 (39:04):
No, I don't, and I don't. But then I also like,
on the flip side of that will regurgitate a lot
of those things of me if I'm a conversation at
a bar or something like that, because you know, I
saw it really quickly and I didn't think to look
deeper into it.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Mike, how do you.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Deal with with the sort of like AI social media
keeping trust in the media when so many people are
getting their news from a place that is not fact check,
that isn't staffed by journalists.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
Even yeah, I just assume, and this has always been
my experience, it's going to be of such apparent lower quality.
Speaker 4 (39:33):
I mean, it.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
Serves it's information, but it's really more habituation into data
or the dopamine hit that one gets from seeing something
that's you know, labeled nonfiction, but that's not really news.
That's not the nourishment that real news can provide. It
leads to horrible effects.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Right.
Speaker 5 (39:54):
There was a book about propaganda written nothing is true
and everything is possible. That's the goal of the propagandist.
And even if our social media TikTok isn't set out
to inculcate us in that or have us steeped in
that idea, that's I think what's going on in our society.
So many people as just a guard against this onslaught
(40:15):
of information, say nothing is true. Everything is possible. But
to answer the question that you've been asking every as
a prompt every segment, what should we do? I would
say in a sentence, us, if we are the people
in the media, and I think Sarah is doing this,
we should put out media that is not for us,
but is for them.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
Who is them?
Speaker 5 (40:36):
It is the audience. It is the audience we have
need to serve. It is the audience we want to serve,
and it's not an imagined audience. Wouldn't it be great
if people knew that we have to think about who
the audience is. Give them what they need, what they
don't even know they want, but not do it for us,
Do it for them.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Let's go to Max, who's in ann Arbor, Michigan. Max,
welcome to the middle. What do you think what can
the media do to regain your trust?
Speaker 21 (41:02):
Well, what I think the media needs to do is
become more explicit about its bias. I think that there
is no such thing as unbiased media. Media is made
by people. Everyone has an opinion. Sometimes it can't help
but have an opinion. And returning to an era where
media embraced its position and embraced its particular biases on
different subjects. Would make it much easier to consume media.
(41:26):
It would make things easier to read between the lines.
It would be more in line with the kind of
historic era of media. You know, one hundred years ago,
you would have a socialist paper, you would have a
right wing paper, you would have a sort of centrist
business liberal paper, and when you read each one of those,
(41:47):
you would know where they're coming from and what sort
of perspectives they bring. And returning to something like that,
I think would be greatly beneficial.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Do you think, though, Max, that even though obviously journalists
are all human beings, that they at least have an
obligation to try and think outside of their own bias.
Speaker 8 (42:09):
I think that.
Speaker 21 (42:12):
Your biases and your personal background will color what you
do no matter what. If you report on especially pressing matters,
the very important things that we see in the world today,
you're going to have thoughts on it. Particularly. You know,
there's been four major like earth shattering events of the
(42:32):
last twenty years nine to eleven, the Recession, Trump, COVID,
and we may be getting like a fifth one right
now with the war in Israel. And everybody has a
different experience going through it. They have their own opinions
on what should have been done to resolve it, and
approaching those the answers to these things that happen in
(42:54):
the world, we need to be clear about what a
perspectives are on it.
Speaker 1 (42:57):
Yeah, let's go to Sarah. Sarah, your thoughts on what
Max had to say there.
Speaker 6 (43:03):
I think there's something to it. Well. I also don't
think that there's like a lot of news organizations out
there hiding where they're coming from. Right, It's not like
we don't know where Fox News is coming from and
we don't know where MSNBC is coming from. But I
do think that news organizations should be transparent about what
their goals are or what their mission is right, what
(43:24):
they're hoping to achieve with the information that they are supplying.
But I also think that a return to based like
more explicitly biased and more polarizing coverage is not going
to solve anything in this environment. One thing that we do,
and that I think some other news organizations are beginning
(43:45):
to do, is a lot of survey work on what
people actually want and need. That is I think much
more valuable so that it helps control for the bias
of the reporters. If your goal is to serve people
and fill these particular information gaps, it's much less important
what you think because your job is clear and has
(44:06):
been defined by the community.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, let's get more with that.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
And I know as a reporter, when I go to
a situation and my orientation is not of objectivity, I
agree that doesn't exist. But real open mind in this
real fairness, my guiding light is not ooh, I got
to formulate my own opinion or propagate my opinion, but
I got to figure out what's the best way to
think about this is and to have other people think
about it.
Speaker 4 (44:29):
I'm a much better reporter.
Speaker 9 (44:30):
You know.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Our job shouldn't be to tell people what to think,
but how to think.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
Let's get to one more call here. Lucy is in
Forest Park, Georgia. Hi, Lucy, go.
Speaker 14 (44:39):
Ahead him wondering and thank you for having me. What
is the criteria for you all deciding that the media
has not been truthful or objective. I think it's great
that you're trying to do the middle ground, but I
just wonder what the criteria is for deciding what is
(45:01):
middle ground and what is not.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Lucy, thank you for that, Sarah, I'll just let you
have the last word on that briefly.
Speaker 6 (45:07):
Oh well, thanks so much. And yeah, I think that
it is easier. This is why the Weather channel is popular, right.
It is easier to figure out what is true when
you can verify it yourself. So when news organizations work
harder to provide information to people that is relevant to
them and that they can easily see whether it is
true or not and whether it matter or not, we
(45:29):
will do better.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Well.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
On that note, I want to thank my guests Outlier
Media founder and editor Sarah Alvarez and Mike Pesca, host
of the Gist podcast. Thank you both, welcome and Tolliver.
Next week we're going to be leading it to the
Memorial Day holiday and we're going to talk about what
that holiday is actually about.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Yeah, we want to know what Memorial Day means to
you and whether you spend time thinking about Americans who
make the ultimate sacrifice for the country. Will be joined
by our former Secretary of Veterans Affairs as well as
a gold Star mom. It'll be a show you won't
want to miss. You can call us at eight four
four four, six four three through five three or write
in that Listen to the Middle dot com.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
And while you're there, sign up for a weekly newsletter.
The Middle is brought to you by Longnook Media, distributed
by Illinois Public Media in Urbana, Illinois, and produced by
Joann Jennings, Harrison Patino, Danny Alexander, and John Barth. Our
intern is an Akadessler, our technical director is Jason Croft,
and our theme music was composed by Andrew Hay. Thanks
also to Nashville Public Radio, iHeartMedia, and the more than
(46:24):
four hundred and ten public radio stations making it possible
for people across the country to listen to The Middle.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
I'm Jeremy Hobson.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Come see us live at the Palace Theater in Waterbury,
Connecticut on June three. Ticket information, We'll be up at
Listen Toothmiddle dot com and I will talk to you
next week.
Speaker 10 (47:01):
Bids make use of the stakes
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.