
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6: Prioritizing Trustworthiness in the book Holy War for True Democracy.
Therefore, there are many examples of individuals who are trustworthy within their domain of expertise. Do we have any similarly trusted professionals in the media who we can rely on for accurate and complete information about government and politics?
The answer is yes, but with major caveats. Pew Research did a study of major news organizations in America [5] and found that there was one organization that was generally trusted by both ideological liberals and conservatives (The Wall Street Journal) and one which is trusted by most and untrusted by none (BBC). Some news organizations are generally trusted by everyone except strong conservatives (The Economist, ABC, USA Today and Google News), and several are close behind (CNN, NPR, Bloomberg, NBC and CBS). Fox is trusted by conservatives and people of mixed ideology but distrusted by liberals. Note: the Associated Press was not in the survey, but it is generally respected as nonpartisan and professional.
One of the big issues with the 2016 and 2017 elections in the USA and Europe is fake news, much of which was sponsored by Russia, where false articles influence unsuspecting voters to cast their ballots in a way that serves Russia’s interests. The American intelligence services concluded that Russian goals were to undermine Western democracies and, in particular in the US, help Trump defeat Clinton. [6] Many in the UK believe Russia influenced the Brexit vote using tactics that included and went beyond fake news. [7] Clearly, democracy will fail if the voters unwittingly see false information in the media.
To fight against fake news, Facebook has recently partnered with several nonpartisan fact-checking organizations (initially, with Snopes, Politifact, ABC News and FactCheck.org) to flag fake news. [8]
Note that this only addresses completely bogus stories. It doesn’t address heavily biased articles with falsehoods or misleading information.
Another shortcoming with existing news sources in the West is that many voters purposefully choose to follow news outlets that cater to their preconceived ideology. Friends on Facebook share biased articles with each other, creating echo chambers for the Left and the Right, thereby increasing political divisions. Many people are more interested in reinforcing their ideology rather than trying to understand the points of view of the other side. (Usually the other side’s point of view is equally valid, and usually there is a consensus common ground that can be found if only people would tone down their emotions.) The Wall Street Journal created an online tool to show the echo chamber effect. [9]
Another big obstacle is partisanship, where a political party cares more about winning the next election than the welfare of its citizens. One classic example cited by American Democrats was when leading Republicans publicly stated during Barack Obama’s first term that they had the specific goal of obstructing him so he would appear to have a failed presidency and therefore lose his bid for reelection. [10] Note that Republicans counter this claim by saying it is important to look at exactly what they said [11] and how the Democrats steamrolled Obamacare through Congress without a single Republican vote. [12]