{"id":2724,"date":"2024-10-09T20:57:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T20:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/?p=2724"},"modified":"2025-03-11T13:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T13:20:10","slug":"why-most-americans-lack-trust-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/10\/09\/why-most-americans-lack-trust-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Americans Don\u2019t Trust Legacy Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c16% of the public in America say that they trust the federal government always or most of the time, which is the lowest level in seven decades in this country. And trust in media among Americans is at an unprecedented low.\u201d<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tara McGowan on the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> podcast<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the latest episode of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/08\/21\/debate-without-hate-podcast-series-navigate-divisive-election\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDebate Without Hate: Elections 2024,\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Tara McGowan, a media entrepreneur and former journalist, talks about Americans\u2019 high distrust of traditional news media. Based on her experiences in journalism and working on political campaigns, McGowan provides insights into this crisis and what we can do to counter the lack of faith in the pillars that make our democracy tick.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Tara McGowan: The Crisis of Media Mistrust\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7mwojVS-Sqo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The host of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Don McPherson, described watching a news network that aligned with his political views and noticing that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">story after story was served up to me to be outraged.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tara and Don discuss the incentives across the media landscape, for both news and social media, that reward<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">emotional and conspiratorial theories\u201d and \u201crage bait.\u201d This media can make \u201cAmericans feel like they are more divided than we actually are.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The incentives to focus on more sensational and divisive content can lead some news consumers to a \u201csaturation point\u201d where they decide to disengage. As Tara points out, very few people would say, \u201cI like to be enraged.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tara also argues that when media outlets are more transparent about their values, this can help reduce distrust:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you [say] you don&#8217;t stand for anything, they&#8217;re not going to believe you, and they&#8217;re going to believe that you&#8217;re selling them a [bill] of goods. So I am the biggest proponent for transparency of point of view, being clear about what your point of view is.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7mwojVS-Sqo\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Watch this <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> episode now<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want to stay in the loop about efforts to overcome toxic divisions? <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/join\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sign up for our newsletter<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c16% of the public in America say that they trust the federal government always or most of the time, which is the lowest level in seven decades in this country. And trust in media among Americans is at an unprecedented low.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 Tara McGowan on the 12 Geniuses podcast In the latest episode&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":2725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"collection_feed":[],"type_feed":[72],"class_list":["post-2724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Many Americans Don\u2019t Trust Legacy Media - Builders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/10\/09\/why-most-americans-lack-trust-media\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Many Americans Don\u2019t Trust Legacy Media - Builders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201c16% of the public in America say that they trust the federal government always or most of the time, which is the lowest level in seven decades in this country. 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