In a meeting with some radio and TV colleagues yesterday, something came up that stuck with me.
People don’t trust the media like they used to.
That’s not new. We all know that. The numbers have been heading in that direction for years. Confidence in television news is down. I see it as a result of a decades-long political assault by people who worked the ref, but then went into overdrive in the Trump era.
Insults. Encouraging physical assaults. And now, the federal government is using its power to threaten licenses unless the outlets toe the party line. And sadly, some media institutions are now in the hands of some of the leaders of that assault, and even the ones who aren’t are being cowed into docility.
Trust in digital outlets is fragmented. Social media has turned information into a battleground where everything feels contested, suspect, or manipulated. Everyone, right, left, wherever, can choose their own silos where the opposing view, if one is even offered, is caricatured and straw-manned to death.
But there’s one place where the erosion hasn’t gone as far.
Radio.
