By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner
Though I’m a political science professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, I have worked as a journalist in the past and I also regularly publish opinion articles in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI newspapers.
I recently took part in a public forum at the university on the future of professional journalism and public broadcasting, with participants from print and broadcast media. The speakers addressed the fact that professional journalism organizations are losing audience and trust, and asked how this affects our democracy, especially in keeping those in power accountable.
While the speakers mainly dealt with the Canadian media landscape, I was more concerned with examining the United States, where I see this as an even greater problem. I teach American politics and read American newspapers, and I think the “legacy” media in the United States, including the influential Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Washington Post, as well as cable news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, and PBS, has become overly politicized.
Critics contend that too many legacy media journalists have become Democratic public relations mouthpieces -- uncritically accepting Democratic talking points and political narratives. This has contributed to Americans’ distrust of legacy media outlets.
They are perceived as having a liberal bias, with their reporters slanting the news to favour the left. After all, after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the Washington Post famously changed its motto to “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
Concern has been raised as the lines between commentary and journalism are increasingly blurred. True or not, this has affected the perception of consumers, and these mainstream outlets have lost readers to upstart right-wing periodicals, social media platforms, and Fox New. They in effect function the way “samizdat” do in less free societies.
A few days before last November’s election, Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post, admitted there was a need to rebuild confidence in the paper as an institution. “We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate,” Bezos wrote.
“It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion.”
As he talked about the Los Angeles Times in a Feb. 4 interview with the New York Free Press, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong also sounded remorseful. “I think our public—now I’ve come to understand—really requires authenticity,” he said. That would require, he explained, erecting a Berlin Wall between news and opinion, which sounded like the idea of what a newspaper should be.
Is there really a left-wing media bias, or has the right wing conspired not only to influence the media but also to create a false image of unfairness? Some evidence is available in a study, “A Measure of Media Bias,” by Tim Groseclose of the University of California at Los Angeles and Jeff Milyo of the University of Chicago, presented in March 2024 at Stanford University's Workshop on the Media & Economic Performance.
These researchers set up an objective measure of bias in U.S. television networks,
newspapers, and magazines. The main finding is that the liberal inclination is pronounced. Although Fox News emerges as conservative, it is not nearly as far to the right as many outlets are to the left.
This evaluation has become clearer after most legacy media appear to have virtually colluded in hiding evidence about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline for years. It infuriated many voters and probably was a factor in Donald Trump’s victory last November.
According to a report by the Media Research Centre, legacy media news outlets were very biased toward Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. They found that Harris received 78 per cent positive coverage, while Trump received 85 per cent negative coverage.
A Gallup poll taken last September found that Americans have record-low trust in the news media. As a result, centre-right aligned voters are tuning into new media, including podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience, All-In, and The Tucker Carlson Show.
Pew Research conducted a study demonstrating that the audience size for traditional media, be it radio, print, or television, is dropping. Another recent Pew study found that 21 per cent of American adults depend on social media influencers for their news. When considering adults ages 18 to 29, this percentage rises to 37 per cent.
The 2024 election was when the media witnessed for the first time how much its power had been sapped away, its audiences stolen by more interesting formats, in rebel journalism and truly independent commentary on Substack.
Owners of social media companies like Reddit claim that they are becoming the new mainstream. As digital media grows in popularity, radio, television, newspapers, and magazines are becoming less significant. People, it seems, are displaying an eagerness to acquire all the information they need from the internet.
The large partisan divide among professional journalists points to the troubled state of the American news media. Clearly, editors and publishers oversee socialization and hiring practices, and questions about whether these processes need adjustment seem legitimate. Otherwise, the public will increasingly turn to outlets which make no pretence of fairness and objectivity – or even telling the truth.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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