America's trust in the media continues to decline

News meeting
The New York Times newsroom staff meets in a scene from "Page One."
Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Gallup's most recent report shows that trust in the media has dropped eight points over the course of one year.

CNN Worldwide correspondent Brian Stelter and NYU journalism professor Pamela Newkirk talked about why only 32 percent of Americans say that they have a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in the media, and what implications this lack of trust has in an election year peppered with leaked emails and conversations about the election, the economy and "the system" being rigged.

Media consumption is at an all-time high, Stelter said, so consumers need to arm themselves and be aware of what they're consuming.

Newkirk also pointed out that in such a divisive and polarizing election, it's not a surprise what we're seeing so much mistrust in the media.

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Below are more moments from the conversation. To hear the entire thing, use the audio player above.

Reader accountability

Newkirk

"You have to be curator of [unbiased media] and how many people have taken the time to learn how to be critical readers, critical listeners?"

Stelter

"On the voter's side or the viewers side there's some work to do. To understand when sources are purposefully biased, purposefully trying to sell you only one side of the story. There's work to do to understand why it is that there's this incredible commercial enterprise of conservative media that is ensuring Trump supports that they're winning, when in fact they're not winning. There's incentive to lie and mislead right now and it's a very strong incentive."

Reader education

Newkirk

"We are members of the media and we know that there's a difference between news and opinion. Many people don't. Many people never did even before the internet. If you ask people the difference between an op-ed and a news article — one is supposed to be more objective than the other — most people don't distinguish in that way, so they have always looked at everything in the same way."

Stelter

"Media literacy, news literacy. We're missing that, we're lacking that as a society. I think a lot of people know what they're consuming but there's a lot of folks who willfully or ignorantly don't know the differences in the kind of media they're consuming. They want to believe certain candidates or certain news sources who are slanted."

"There's a big difference between news sources like CNN who try not to be biased, versus a lot of news outlets who are intentionally, biased."

Media transparency

Newkirk

"I don't think the public deserves the media that they're getting but as long as news is a business and not a public interest, that's what we're going to get. Public radio [is] able to not cater to the lower common denominator. You don't have to be as concerned as a commercial operation with what the ratings are. And so, when you have a commercial network, it has to play to that bottom line."

Stelter

"We've got to defend ourselves. In this climate where Trump is delegitimizing journalism and you might think that's great or terrible but that's what he's doing. Every day he's tearing down the media, and I think it's a moment where we in the press have to better explain why we do what we do. Journalists have a lot of personal views, but we do a really good job, for the most part, keeping those views out of the coverage and trying to report it like it is. So it is a moment where we have to stand up and say that and try to defend what we do."