How the Media Can Escape Its Doom Loop of Distrust

This column is a part of Republic of Distrust, a series about the loss of trust in American institutions and what can be done to restore it.

Walter Cronkite was often described as “the most trusted man in America” in the 1960s and ‘70s. The avuncular CBS News anchor was admired for reporting fairly and accurately, even when his view challenged the official line or popular opinion. After a 1968 reporting trip to Vietnam, for example, Cronkite told his 30 million viewers that the American war there was an unwinnable “stalemate,” a judgment that helped turn the public against the war. Conservative pundit George Will said the history of journalism in our era could be divided into “Before Cronkite” and “After Cronkite.” “After Cronkite” was characterized by a precipitous decline in the public’s trust.

In the bitterly fractious, misinformation-saturated, social-mediated America of 2024, it’s hard to think of a consensus candidate for the title of most trusted, but it would probably not be a journalist. The authors of one Gallup survey last year declared their assessment of public trust and confidence in mass media “the grimmest in Gallup’s history.” Among Gallup’s ranking of the 10 US civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process, mass media and Congress were tied for the least trusted.