Guest Column: A Retro Proposal to Restore The Public’s Trust in Media
In 1976, the first year of that annual Gallup poll showing this year’s dreadful erosion in media trust, pollsters found that 72% of those polled had “a great deal/fair amount” of trust in the press. This year a mere 31% felt that way. As erosion in public trust of media becomes an avalanche, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ken Wells suggests a return to the agnostic newsroom.
I say this as a semi-retired journalist who got my start by the generosity of editors who hired me on a hunch rather than any real qualifications. At 19, I started covering cops, courts and car wrecks for my community weekly newspaper in the drowsy bayou town of Houma, Louisiana. Having lucked into my life’s work, I went on to an adventurous four-decade-plus career that included 24 years as a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal and stints at the Miami Herald , Conde Nast Portfolio and Bloomberg News.
One thing I learned from the start is that journalism isn’t a popularity contest. Yes, you can write reader-pleasing features about puppies, gifted students and hometown heroes. “But fundamentally, we’re the watchdogs, and watchdogs bite and bark and annoy people,” I recall John B. Gordon, the editor-in-chief of my old Louisiana weekly telling me.
