In 2018, a Gallup poll reported that45 percent of Americans trusted mass media to report the news accurately and fairly. That’s up from an all-time low of 32 percent in 2016, but still far lower than the levels of trust in the 1990s.
Healing this relationship is one reason why Fresno State created the Institute for Media and Public Trust last summer. Next week, the institute will hold its biggest symposium to date, called “Putting Fake News in the Rear View Mirror: How the Media Can Win Back the Trust of all Americans.”
The keynote speaker: Stephen Engelberg, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter who founded the investigative unit at the New York Times and is now editor-in-chief of the non-profit investigative news service ProPublica. In this interview, Engelberg previews next week’s symposium—including his take on the consequences of a loss of trust in the media, and what journalists and editors can do to regain it.
