The restoration of the Fairness Doctrine would also help stymie some of the biggest promulgators like Fox News *
* you can search for "fox news viewers misinformed" and encounter studies and results like http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/
Similarily, there are still excellent news sources. The Economist is often cited in these discussions, and the New York Times is also vigilant in their reporting and the correction of errors when they occur[0].
What we’ve seen is a breakdown in trust of institutions, largely disconnected from actual mistakes on their part. People will quickly demand proof and invoke conspiracy theories when, for example, the there-letter agencies accuse Eussia of interfering in elections. They have learned to invoke “appeal to authority fallacy”too well, without offering an alternative. Because you cannot evaluate a new story without in some way deferring to the reputation of the publisher.
Re: trust and appeal to authority; your example made me realize people are drawn to grand conspiracies because unverifiable theories are infallible... Luring in people unfamiliar with probabilistic reasoning and consilience.
Although this distrust does have negative impacts to our society, I view this distrust as an overall good thing.
Sure McDonalds is not good, but there is also plenty of organic that equally bad (or worse).
That depends. Sometimes European organic veg is preferable to Chinese industrially farmed veg when your local supermarket offers only those two choices. This is definitely true of garlic: Chinese garlic tends to be notoriously bitter and lack juice, but Spanish organic garlic is very sweet, pungent, and juicy. Now, the fact that the European organic choice was made according to the limitations of organic farming may well be irrelevant to its goodness, but there is a strong enough correlation with quality to guide consumers, and it was likely chosen by your supermarket as an alternative to the Chinese imported product precisely because they wanted to cover the organic segment.
The Economist and the New York Times may have good practices in regard to errors, but there is a clear difference in their reporting to independent fact checking sites. To make matters worse, even those examples of "excellent" news papers tend to have a clear and open political alignment. With increased political polarization this then result in a rather natural distrust of news institutions, even those that are vigilant in correcting errors after they have occurred.