Columns



Ari B. Adler

Who Do You Trust?

December 19, 2011

I’ve written here before about the need for elected officials to take advantage of technology to stay in touch with their constituents. It’s even more important now, considering how many mainstream media outlets are shrinking and, in the process, reducing the already lackluster coverage of what’s happening in the halls of government.

I still believe that to be true, but survey results from the Pew Research Center have me wondering how much people trust the information they receive from anyone.

According to Pew, 66 percent of people believe that news organizations often produce inaccurate stories. Despite that failing, 69 percent of people in the survey trust local news organizations “some” or “a lot.”

Those aren’t very impressive numbers for an industry whose outlets often tout themselves as trusted news sources. But I suppose “trusted by most” or “trusted more than the government,” isn’t much of a tagline if you want to attract viewers and readers.

The Pew survey showed that while more than one-quarter of the people trust local news outlets “not much” or “none,” those outlets are doing much better than their national counterparts, which were trusted by only 59 percent of the respondents. The numbers just go downhill from there.

State government comes in at an unimpressive 51 percent of respondents trusting it, followed by the Obama Administration (50 percent), federal government agencies (44 percent), business corporations (41 percent), Congress (37 percent) and candidates running for office (29 percent).

Even the most trusted news outlets don’t fare well when asked how they’re doing in the accuracy department.

The Pew Research Center has statistics going all the way back to 1985, and negative opinions about the news industry are now higher than ever.

Fifty-five percent of survey respondents in 1985 thought news organizations got the facts straight. That’s certainly not all that impressive, but it sure beats the abysmal 25 percent who gave the news a positive rating this year.

Influence by outside interests also is anticipated more now by readers and viewers than it was in the past. While 53 percent of survey respondents thought news outlets were “often influenced by powerful people and organizations,” that number has skyrocketed to an alarming 80 percent.

Almost the same amount of people — 77 percent — believe news outlets “tend to favor one side” when producing a news story. That’s up from 53 percent in 1985, after a zigzagging rating over the past 26 years that has been steadily climbing since 2007.

The answer is to find a way to boost the trust level of audiences with all outlets of news, from mainstream media to blogs to direct output from elected officials. We live in an era of amazing Internet connectivity. Fact checking should be easier than ever, and yet opinion, half-truths and rumors are spreading faster than anything else.

Winston Churchill is credited with saying, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on.” I can’t help but wonder how he’d feel today, and if he would be willing to use the power of social media to help spread facts, dispel rumors and build trust among the public.

If you want to be successful as an elected official or a journalist now and in the near future, you’re going to have to find the courage and learn the tools to make this happen. And you better hurry. The lies are half a world ahead of you.

Ari B. Adler is a professional communicator with experience as a newspaper reporter and editor as well as a government and corporate spokesperson. He is the press secretary to Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger and an adjunct instructor at Michigan State University. You can follow him on Twitter at @aribadler.