Is There A Road to Redemption for News Propagandists?
Corporate news media is quickly losing its stronghold. Institutional journalists have two choices: revamp their mission as news reporters or continue in the tradition of mainstream propaganda.
According to a new Gallup poll, Americans’ trust in the news media is at a new record low. Reportedly only 31% of Americans still have trust in the news media, a nearly ten percent drop from a decade ago. If this trend continues, by 2050 there’ll be little to no trust left in corporate news media institutions—a much needed outcome if the true function of journalism is to ever be restored. But what becomes of the front-facing news anchors, pundits, contributing writers and journalists when they are no longer needed at their failing news media institutions? Will they evolve their journalistic mission toward a more responsible and ethical practice, or will they simply carry on in the tradition of mainstream propaganda, echoing the sentiment that no matter what format or medium their journalism takes, nothing will fundamentally change?
If liberal corporate news insiders are not seriously weighing these types of questions, especially in the aftermath of a historic election defeat at the hands of the former president Donald Trump, and as they feel the tectonic plates of the news media industry shifting beneath them, then they do not deserve our condolences when their industry collapses.
In the first quarter of 2023 and 2024, respectively, Buzzfeed News and Vice Media, the revolutionary news media platforms once projected to replace legacy media’s dominance in the news industry, were forced to shut down their online news operations due to financial troubles. While much of their success came from an innovative business model that centered the 18-34 years old demographic, ultimately it became untenable to support their respective platforms with the financial model that had gotten them to the heights they’d managed to climb in the news industry.
In late 2023, and earlier this year, major news publications including The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC News, Time, and more reported massive layoffs, citing outdated industry business models and “the internet revolution and other technological advances that have fundamentally changed the way the public consumes news and entertainment,” according to a reporting by Oliver Darcy and Jon Passantino for CNN.
Not only have the consumer’s behavior changed in how they get their news—across trendy social media apps and on alternative, independent platforms—news publications and networks have become more calcified, restricting, and overt with partisan propagandistic narratives in their news coverage. If they’re not actively driving readers and viewers away by failing to carry out their core journalistic function—reporting the truth no matter whom it implicates—they’re exacerbating working conditions for their own internal staff, some of whom have admitted to feeling stifled and limited to cover the types of stories they’re interesting in pursuing.
Day in and day out, more of these stories are becoming commonplace; of corporate news media outlets losing ground in the industry. Just days ago, The Washington Post’s owner and Amazon tycoon, Jeff Bezos, penned an op-ed titled “The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media.” In the piece, Bezos clarifies his recent decision to break away from tradition and withhold endorsement for a presidential candidate in 2024, and beyond. He cites the Washington Post’s—and other papers’—fall in credibility, and the amount of work it’s going to take to wrestle it back, beginning with taking the middle road during election seasons. “Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world?” he proclaimed, as if reciting a new manifesto for the paper.