Should People Still Trust the Media in 2025? | DealBook Summit 2025

The State of Media Trust

• 💡 Panelists offered varied perspectives on whether people should trust the media in 2025, ranging from “yes” to “broadly no,” emphasizing the complexity of the issue.
• 🔑 Many agree that there's an undeniable low point in trust for institutions, including media, but also believe good information and credible journalism still exist.
• 🎯 The consensus is that “the media” is too broad a term, as endless sources of information exist, and consumers must discern trustworthy outlets.

Trump's Impact on Journalism

• ⚠️ President Trump is seen as a major “interrupter” of journalism, through lawsuits, threats to licenses, and labeling the press as “enemies of the people.”
• 🗣️ Ben Shapiro argues Trump is a “coroner, not the killer” of journalism’s credibility, asserting that trust was already eroded before his presidency due to perceived left-wing bias.
• 🛡️ Concerns were raised about corporate interests influencing media decisions when faced with pressure from administrations, potentially compromising journalistic integrity for mergers or financial gain.

Disruption by Personalities and Technology

• 🚀 The rise of journalists as individual brands (e.g., podcasters, online personalities) allows direct audience engagement, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers.
• 📱 Technological disruption, particularly algorithms on platforms like TikTok, drives extreme rhetoric and creates “a thousand different realities,” making it difficult to share common information.
• 🧠 This environment leads to an “attention economy” where “rage bait” and “brain rot” are prevalent, as content creators escalate rhetoric to gain views and cross over silos.

Challenges in Reporting Complex Issues

• 🔬 Coverage of events like COVID-19 and the Russia investigation highlighted a disconnect between granular journalistic reporting and the public’s “gestalt” or overall perception.
• 🧐 Debates arose over whether media outlets have agendas rather than making “errors,” with some arguing that newsrooms push specific programming to their audiences.
• ⚖️ The discussion on the Mueller report’s “no indictment” outcome exemplified how public understanding of complex legal processes can differ from the nuanced reality, leading to narratives of “hoax.”

Defining Journalistic Responsibility

• ✅ Panelists debated the responsibility of media personalities to fact-check guests, with some arguing for a duty to truth and others for humanizing guests and focusing on entertainment.
• 🗣️ A key distinction was made between “journalism as an act” (credible reporting) and “journalism as an outlet” (blanket trust in a brand), advocating for earned trust.
• 🧭 The importance of honesty about biases was stressed, with the critique that traditional media often claims objectivity while having inherent viewpoints, unlike transparently partisan voices.

Pathways to Rebuilding Trust

• 💡 Suggestions for improving the media landscape included the idea of “nutrition facts” for internet content to help consumers discern quality, similar to food labeling.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 A radical proposal was to “turn off their phones” and engage in in-person interactions to combat atomization and the negative effects of constant media consumption.
• 🤝 Ultimately, the panel highlighted the need for decency, accountability, and a focus on core issues that affect people’s lives, rather than extreme political rhetoric.