Estes Park residents depend heavily on trusted news. Wildfires, the state of the community’s tourism-driven economy, the functioning of the institutions that govern it and provide services – those and other important concerns mean that good journalism is essential to the quality of life.
But Americans have a complicated relationship with the news media. Polls show that only a fraction of the country trusts it.
Colorado-based filmmaker Don Colacino’s new documentary, “Trusted Sources” delves into the roots of Americans’ distrust in journalism and explores how consumers can identify credible information..
Colacino explained the motivation behind his film: “We’re living in a time where people are more likely to believe that journalists are manufacturing stories than telling the truth,” he said. “The whole notion of ‘fake news’ has become pervasive.”
Why Americans distrust the news—and what can be done
The Edelman Trust Barometer found this year that 60% of Americans believe journalists “are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations.” And Gallup, Inc. found this month that public confidence in the nation’s news media has reached historic lows, with only about a third of Americans expressing it. Some surveys show that only a quarter of respondents view the news media favorably.
Financial pressures and the profit motive are seen by many Americans as a factor that pushes the news media away from serving the civic good. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Gallup reported in 2022 that more than three-fourths of the nation believes that “news organizations are first and foremost businesses, motivated by their financial interests and goals,” and only 12% think that “ news organizations are first and foremost civic institutions, motivated by serving the public interest.”
Political polarization and concerns over misinformation are also driving this distrust.
“Perceptions of political bias in news coverage have . . . increased, with independents driving the trend, followed by Republicans, then Democrats,” the Knight Foundation concluded last year. And about 60% of the country thinks it is difficult to be well-informed due to the explosion in information sources, while half of Americans “say there is so much bias in the news media that it is often difficult to sort out the facts.”
Colacino’s film addresses these trends, exploring how news organizations can rebuild trust by being more transparent and responsive to their audiences.
Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, suggested in a recent essay that one way to restore trust is to move beyond the rigid concept of objectivity in journalism. “Truth-seeking news media must move beyond whatever ‘objectivity’ once meant to produce more trustworthy news,” Downie wrote, arguing that objectivity can sometimes obscure truth by promoting false balance.
Colacino pointed out that the media’s tendency to present opposing viewpoints without deeper analysis confuses audiences.
“When you’re just saying, ‘these folks say this, and this group says that,’ without digging deeper, that’s the equivalent of just publishing a press release. That’s not journalism,” Colacino remarked during an Oct. 21 interview with the Estes Valley Voice.
He emphasized that, while the Fairness Doctrine once aimed to assure balanced coverage on television and radio news broadcasts, today’s journalism must go further to distinguish fact from opinion.
Colacino also argues that transparency is essential to earning public trust. “Journalists must indicate what’s factual and what they couldn’t find evidence for,” Colacino explained, adding that clarity fosters trust, even among readers with opposing viewpoints.
How social media and cable TV media productions alter news consumption
Social media platforms are dominant sources of news. In 2023 the Pew Research Center noted that 30% of Americans get their news from Facebook. “Smaller shares regularly get news on Instagram (16%), TikTok (14%) or X (12%),” the organization reported.
Younger audiences are more likely to get their news from social media. “On Instagram, for example, about half of users under 50 say they see breaking news about events as they’re happening (51%), compared with 29% of those 50 and older,” Pew found. And about half of Tiktok users between the ages of 18 and 29 say that access to news is a “major or minor reason” for their presence on the platform.
These platforms, however, raise concerns about misinformation. A 2018 MIT study found that misinformation spreads ten times as fast on social media as accurate reporting; the problem is particularly pronounced on TikTok.
They also perpetuate echo chambers that reinforce preexisting beliefs and, along with cable TV media productions, increasingly, drive partisan political polarization.
In general, “evidence suggests that partisan polarization in the use and trust of media sources has widened,” said the Pew Research Center in 2020. Social media appears to contribute to this phenomenon because of its both-ways model of communication.
Because the platforms readily facilitate production and sharing of content that can achieve a wide audience, it is “difficult for individuals to encounter accurate and reliable information online, as they observe distilled signals from friends in their network without necessarily knowing the source,” wrote a researcher at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies in a recent metaanalysis.
Academic research appears to confirm this supposition. For example, a 2021 paper published in the American Economic Review reported “results suggest[ing] that social media algorithms may limit exposure to counter-attitudinal news and thus increase polarization.”
Researchers have reported similar results at least since 2014. One paper published that year suggested that “social media seems to exacerbate polarization in information consumption.”
Cable media productions also significantly contribute to the problem.
“Cable news is a business that runs on ratings and advertisements and, in order to capture people’s attention, it needs to be engaging,” the BU Pardee School researcher found. “It has, therefore, increasingly blurred the lines between information and entertainment.”
That study also explained why cable TV media productions cause this result.
“The divisive tone of cable news has become the very nature of its appeal, and this type of journalism hardens polarization because ‘the more political media one consumes, the more warped their perspective of the other side becomes,’ the author, Flavia Roscini, wrote. She cited a 2021 Poynter Institute analysis that took particular umbrage at Fox News.
“Like never before, the social media era encourages the public to self-sort into communities unified by shared identity, interest or worldview,” A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, said in this year’s Reuters Memorial Lecture. “These groups form their own narratives, which harden and become more extreme. Louder voices rise to the top, as they inevitably do in digital environments. These echo chambers celebrate work that conforms to their narratives and protest anything that challenges them.”
Colacino’s film encourages viewers to critically assess the information they consume, regardless of where it originates.
“It’s not just about criticizing the media—it’s about helping people develop the skills to evaluate what they’re reading and watching,” he said.
Connecting local news with community needs
Trust in local news remains high. About 85% of people think local news is important to their community, with more than half of those over age 50 agreeing, and about seven of every 10 Americans “say their local journalists are doing a good job of reporting news accurately,” according to Pew research conducted this year.
Here in Estes Park, the public perception of the value of local news drove the launch in June of the Estes Valley Voice. This local connection underscores the film’s message about the importance of journalism that reflects and serves its community.
Financial pressures and journalism’s future
Although the public appears to value local news, many of the outlets that assure access to it are struggling financially. Data analyzed by the Pew Research Center shows that both circulation and advertising revenue have dramatically fallen in recent years.
The freefall has had severe consequences for local news, as the country has lost more than 3,000 local newspapers since 2005, according to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. More than 200 U.S. counties now lack any news source at all, while more than 1,500 counties have only one news source.
But most Americans appear unaware of the fiscal crisis in journalism, with nearly two-thirds professing a belief that their local news sources are doing fine.
And few Americans are enthusiastic about paying for news. “The most common explanation is that people don’t pay because they can find plenty of free local news, although young adults are more inclined to say they just aren’t interested enough in local news to pay for it,” Pew found.
Sulzberger warned earlier this year that the financial struggles of news organizations threaten the integrity of journalism. “News organizations are shrinking and dying under sustained financial duress,” he wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review. “The newspapers that endure, embracing the approach of many of the digital news organizations that have emerged, have often felt compelled to shift increasingly scarce resources away from expensive original reporting to far cheaper but less journalistically nutritious efforts like punditry, aggregation, and clickbait.”
As a result, the journalists who managed to keep their jobs now often find themselves stuck at their desks aggregating and opining on others’ work, instead of coming face to face with new people and perspectives through on-the-ground reporting,” Sulzberger continued.
Hedge fund ownership has also resulted in newsroom layoffs and a focus on profits over public service, eroding the connection between news outlets and their communities.
One recent study, for example, found that “newspaper newsrooms that were acquired by an investment owner were reduced in size by an average of nine reporters and editors, when compared to newspapers that were not acquired by an investment owner.”
The authors of that research paper went on to note that the loss of journalists “is a large negative effect: about 14 percent of the average newsroom’s size” in the sample they studied.
“As newsrooms shrink, communities feel increasingly disconnected from the issues that matter most,” Colacino noted. “This disconnect fosters distrust and disengagement.”
A call to action for local readers
The Casper Project on Media Trust and Democracy, a project undertaken by the Society of Professional Journalists in our neighboring state of Wyoming, recently concluded that transparency and community involvement are essential for rebuilding public confidence.
“Maintain dialogue with your audience,” the report said. “Help people understand how your news organization works and how your journalists do their jobs.”
And do not shy away from confronting bias. “One of the main reasons people abandon a news organization is that they perceive bias in the coverage,” the Casper Project report authors wrote. “Journalists need to take this complaint seriously.”
Colacino’s “Trusted Sources” urges viewers to engage with news critically and hold journalists accountable for their work.
“We need to foster meaningful dialogue between journalists and the public,” Colacino said. “People want reliable information, but they also need to feel that the media is working in their interest.”
Join the conversation: Attend the screening and panel discussion
The screening of “Trusted Sources” on Oct. 28 will be followed by a panel discussion with Colacino, Estes Park Mayor Gary Hall, Rev. Elizabeth Jameson, and Vanessa Otero, the developer of the Media Bias Chart®. This event offers residents a chance to engage directly with the filmmaker and participate in a conversation about the role of journalism in political discourse and civility in the public square.
Estes Valley Voice received funding for the event from the Colorado Media Project and a Rose Community Foundation Grant for a community civility initiative.
As news consumption shifts to digital platforms and public trust continues to wane, “Trusted Sources” serves as both a critique and a guide. It challenges viewers to think critically about the information they consume and emphasizes the need for transparency and accountability in journalism.
Thomas Jefferson’s words from 1816 resonate deeply with the themes explored in the film: “If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be…Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.”
These words remind us that the health of democracy depends on an informed public and a free press. Don’t miss this opportunity to explore these pressing issues and join the conversation about the future of news.
The screening is free. For tickets, please RSVP here.