In recent weeks, there were two major media events that highlight the dire state of the American media today:

Jeff Gerth, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and former reporter for the New York Times, published in the Columbia Journalism Review, a 24,000-word critical analysis of the Times’ coverage of the so-called Russia Hoax (which most readers will recognize without any further explanation). This fantasy occupied a central position in the nation’s news for three years during the Trump administration—including false claims of a president’s collusion with Russia—with never a scintilla of evidence, and was the most irresponsible piece of journalism ever published in this country. Despite these shocking factual revelations there was virtually no coverage of the Gerth analysis in any major non-conservative news outlet, and none of course in the New York Times. 

Leonard Downie, formerly the executive editor of the Washington Post and now at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, published an op-ed in the Post with the headline “Newsrooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ can build trust.” Based on an investigation of “the values and practices in mainstream newsrooms today,” he and a colleague found that “the truth-seeking news media must move beyond whatever ‘objectivity’ once meant to produce more trustworthy news. . . .  More and more journalists of color and younger White reporters, including LGBTQ+ people, in increasingly diverse newsrooms believe that the concept of objectivity has prevented truly accurate reporting informed by their own backgrounds, experiences and point of view.”

These events come after reports over many years that the American people’s trust in the honesty and truthfulness of the American media has been declining year by year since the 1950s, and now stands at about 29 percent (the percentages differ but the trend is clear).

Uncertainty about the honesty and reliability of the news media has fostered the Substack phenomenon—the growing number of writers who now offer their views on the news to subscribers instead of through the media. Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger and Bari Weiss are in this group. The fact that people will pay separately for facts and opinions that they could otherwise get from newspapers—if the newspapers were to publish these views—is an important indicator of the decline in the trust Americans have in today’s news sources. 

Another member of the Substack corps is Andrew Sullivan—no conservative—who writes a weekly piece called “The Weekly Dish.” He begins his February 3 edition with this: “There are times when I actually feel some pity for the editors in the mainstream media. In the last few years, pressured relentlessly by young, super-leftist staffers, they have slowly and then precipitously dropped the goal of objectivity and news in favor of subjectivity and narratives.” 

As an example of what this really means, Sullivan quotes the Atlantic’s Jemele Hill: “I need so many people to understand this regarding Tyre Nichols. Several of the police officers who murdered Freddie Gray were Black. The entire system of policing is based on white supremacist violence. We see people under the boot of oppression carry its water all the time.”

Political divisions in the United States are increasing, as are the dangers to democracy implicit in this disparity of views. For years, Americans have even girded themselves for bitter fights across the Thanksgiving table. Today there is even talk about civil war.

While the source of these deep political divisions is constantly studied by academic and professional students of politics, answers are few. Are they the result of new political conflicts between conservatives and progressives, an inability of our political system to satisfy the needs of large groups driven by different economic circumstances, or by deeper problems in society yet to be discovered or recognized?

A 2021 report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, noted Americans’ trust in the news is the lowest of 46 countries, including Poland, Philippines and Peru. The decline in trust of the media may be a cause—not just a symptom—of these deep political divisions.

The media’s Downie—who seems to advocate a departure from objectivity in favor of a “woke” view of reality—is certainly a possible contributor to divisions in this country. This requires more academic study. If the news media selects only the facts that they want to publish for political reasons, it is hardly surprising that the public is divided and confused about what is actually happening in our society.

Peter J. Wallison is a senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute. He was White House Counsel and General Counsel of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration

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