Americans' Trust in the Integrity of Mass Media is On the Decline Due to Perceived Bias in News Coverage

 According to this CNN article, the percentage of Americans who trust the media has fallen from 54% in 1999, to 40% as of 2015. This shows that in less than a decade, the number of people who trust the mass media has fallen dramatically. This is also surprising if you consider the fact that even in the late 1990's, just over half of the population of Americans trusted the media.


One might expect that more people would have trusted the media, yet that number was considerably low even in the 1990's. Polls also show that younger Americans, seem to not trust the media, as opposed to older Americans who seem to have more trust. 

Lack of Trust in the Media Might Be an Issue of Individual Bias, and Not of Media Content Itself

Perceived bias in information distributed through the media increases audiences' distrust in mass media producers. This effect is termed the "hostile media perception" (HMP), which describes, according to a study, "Mapping Boundaries of the Hostile Media Effect", people's tendency to judge mass media coverage as biased and contrary to their own opinions (Gunther and Schmitt). The problem however, might be due to bias in the minds of readers themselves.

According to an article by The Washington Post, even though no news source is 100% bias free, there is little to suggest that the media is consistently biased in one direction, in terms of politics.  While people often perceive bias, research shows that news reports tends to point toward the middle because "that's where the people are". The study even outlines a case where two readers from opposing viewpoints have sent letters to the editor of a newspaper company, complaining about the biased nature of the news coverage. The fact that partisans from both ends of the issue perceived bias in the same piece, suggests that the problem might lie within audiences.

The study mentioned above supports this idea by explaining the results of exposing two opposing partisan groups on the issue of genetically modified (GM) foods to a reading about GM foods. Some partisans received the reading in the form of a newspaper article, while others received the reading in the form of a student's essay. Results showed that even though the content of the pieces were exactly the same, the difference in source of the piece (a student's paper vs. a newspaper article) determined the readers perception of bias in the article. Those who read the student's essay felt that the information was favorable to their opinions, while those who read the newspaper article perceived bias in the information.

Cases of Dishonest Reporting in News Organizations Might Contribute to Americans' Lack of Trust in the Media

Brian Williams

One example of this is the scandal involving NBC news reporter, Brian Williams, who lost the trust of many by giving inaccurate accounts of his involvement in the Iraq war in 2003. Williams stated in his account  that the military helicopter he was in was forced to land after being hit by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), when in fact he was in a trailing helicopter far behind the one that was hit. His initial account of the incident made no mention of his helicopter being hit, but throughout the decade following, his story became increasingly inconsistent and exaggerated.

The truth became known when other soldiers who were present during the incident, including the ones who were on the helicopter that was attacked, took to social media to voice their frustration with Williams' dishonest account of the incident. Their acts of protest sparked much excitement, leading to "amateur sleuths" fact-checking Williams reports of the story in
videos posted on YouTube.


Even though much of the attention surrounding the scandal is placed on Brian Williams, he was not the only one aware of the inaccurate accounts, including the crew members who were on his helicopter and the NBC employees who worked on the story with him. This incident raises questions as to how the mistakes were made in the first place. This might explain why the source of information acted as a determining factor for partisans perception of bias in the study above.

As it relates to the HMP theory, while instances of dishonesty might contribute to people's distrust of the media, it is only a theory that explains people's distrust. There are other factors that could explain the HMP theory, such as the level of involvement an individual might have in a particular issue that the news might cover. The study on HMP highlights this factor.

The hostile media effect is a curious phenomenon, since there is also strong evidence to support people's tendency to perceive information as being in favor of their opinions, the "biased assimilation" effect. It is unknown exactly what causes the hostile media perception effect, but speculations have been made as to why people tend to be skeptical of the mass media. 

I think people distrust the media because we live in an age where people have more access to information that, although comes from non mass media sources, can be quite reliable, so there is no reason to place all of one's trust in the mass media since there are credible alternatives. Also, instances of extremely biased or dishonest story covers might be etched into the minds of media consumers, causing them to be skeptical of any news coverage or report.

Since we only find out if a story was false, or significantly skewed, after the fact, it is probably easier for people to be skeptical of everything instead of trusting. Additionally, in my opinion, we live in an age where people are moving away from traditional ways of thinking and are no longer relying on traditional sources of information, like the media, to get credible information. More people are becoming educated and are able to think for themselves and be intelligently skeptical of incoming information.