We journalists love to blame the rise of distrust in experts on dishonest disinformation merchants, on the Alex Joneses and Donald Trumps and Vladimir Putins of the world.
But sometimes journalism itself contributes. Yes, obviously, part of that is bad journalism: Every big scoop that turns out to be wrong — from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to claims that Hunter Biden's laptop was just Russian disinformation — just feeds that sense that no one is trustworthy. If those charged with separating truth from lies can't even tell the difference, then how can anyone believe anything?
Here's the thing: Often, it's also great journalism that's the thing eroding our faith in government, business and other journalistic outlets. In many ways, that's the primary side effect of holding those in power accountable.
The Washington Post breaking the Watergate scandal was one of the most celebrated journalistic coups of all time. After all, it unseated a president. But it also meant that the percentage of Americans who believed their leaders constantly lied to them leapt from 32 percent in 1972 to 68 percent in 1975.
It wasn't disinformation that sparked the frenzy of conspiratorial thinking in the 1970s, in other words: It was actual conspiracy, exposed by journalists. Look up Gallup polls, and you can watch trust in pharmaceutical companies collapse as reporting on the opioid epidemic ramps up. You can watch faith in organized religion plunge after the Boston Globe's Spotlight investigation exposed the Catholic Church's coverup in sexual abuse.
Exposing this kind of corruption is the primary role of journalism, but we pay a cost as well: You add to the forces chipping away at our faith in every aspect of society. For some people, there's nothing left but a kind of weary nihilism, and they turn to vigilantism, quack cures, and wild conspiracy theories.
The Miami Herald's coverage of Jeffrey Epstein revealed how the powerful had been protecting a monstorous sexual predator, but as a side-effect, stoked existing conspiracy theories about networks of elite pedophiles.
So if both bad and good journalism destroys faith in institutions, what actually helps rebuild trust? Mediocre journalism. I'm talking about the bread-and-butter filler of daily papers in the old days: the recaps of relatively placid city council meetings, the everyone-enjoyed-the-parade stories, the ribbon cutting of the new wing at the hospital. As daily newspapers get thinner — or disappear entirely — we've lost a lot of this kind of reporting.
These stories aren't flashy. They're the kind of ho-hum pieces that implicitly defend the status quo. Instead of speaking truth to power, they tell power, "Eh, you're more-or-less doing OK."
To be clear, I'm not adopting the view of conspiracy movie-villains, about how a lie is necessary to prevent panic, about how the truth would tear our society asunder, about how the common folk need a myth to believe in. Without investigative journalism, the seedy side of the status quo gets covered up, rotting society from the inside. That's why I do it. But if all that people read is the kind of journalism that exposes liars — the kind of stuff that goes viral most often — it can create its own sort of distortion: that everyone's a liar, so we can't really trust anyone.
Shocking reporting, then, has to be balanced by the boring stuff: A lot of arrests really are justified, a lot of pharmaceutical research really is about improving health, a lot of politicians really do want to improve constituents' lives. Not everyone is a monster, not everything's falling apart, and not everyone is lying all the time. To speak that truth, you can't just rely on investigative reporters. You need day-to-day grinders, too. ♦
