Munk Debate “Should We Trust the Mainstream Media”?

Be it resolved, don't trust mainstream media

    Public trust in mainstream media is at an all-time low. Critics point to coverage of COVID-19, the 2020 election, and the Ottawa trucker protest as proof that legacy outlets like the New York Times, The Globe and Mail and CNN can no longer be relied upon to provide unbiased reporting. Activist journalists are using pen and paper to push political agendas while their bosses lean into the profitability of polarization. Mainstream media’s defenders argue that their institutions offer an invaluable public service that alternative outlets are either incapable or uninterested in providing: careful fact-based reporting on important issues and holding the powerful to account. In a brave new world of “fake news” and “drive by” journalism, traditional news organizations are essential to democracy and a bulwark against corruption, misinformation and the private interests of the powerful.

This debate was won by 66% to 34%, a record swing and the winners were "don't trust the MSM".

I thought the performance by Malcolm Gladwell was rather poor. Very interesting debate, worth watching.

Certainly not. You should only ever trust the media on certain topics and people don't seem to really understand public relations. Although the average journalist might just be click farming with outrage, there still is a story that mainstream media does indeed spin.

You might make fun of tinfoil hats but they actually are at least partially correct that not everything they are told is really objectively true. Doesn't mean the converse argument is true. What is mainstream media? It is not a trivial question to answer, but it might be sensible to look where "modern" media started. A good read would be the books by Walter Lippmann

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann

I don't think you can deny his influence on modern western nations. Chomsky has sensible critiques here. You should be able to extract what he says and its implications. You don't have to be a supporter of neoliberalism, but you might also want to look into Hayek. Their economic models aren't that important for the topic of media, although it is also one perspective.

One could have hoped that the listeners of media evolved in the 21st century but that was more or less empirically disproven in the last years at least. We have as much propaganda and artificial topics, what is deemed correct and important is mostly narrated. Some of it by accident and some of it is to push certain topics. This isn't a conspiracy and I doubt the average journalist really reflects about which topics he writes. It has been become some trivial game for them. You are on the correct team or you are not. I believe many journalists from larger publishers have some online groups to circle jerk where they feel smart being in on it. But their output seems quite trivial and it certainly does not inform the reader. Not the best economy for them, but I don't think you should listen to people uncritical of media at all. You should always reflect on why they tell you about x. There are some really independent journalists out there and in the usual case that they report the truth as they see it, they will come in conflict with mainstream journalists. This is almost inevitable. Again, that does not mean their stories are always true as well.