PBS and NPR are generally unbiased, independent of government propaganda and provide key benefits to US democracy

  Champions of the almost entirely party-line vote in the U.S. Senate to erase US$1.1 billion in already approved funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting called their action a refusal to subsidize liberal media.

  “Public broadcasting has long been overtaken by partisan activists,” said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, insisting there is no need for government to fund what he regards as biased media. “If you want to watch the left-wing propaganda, turn on MSNBC,” Cruz said.

  Accusing the media of liberal bias has been a consistent conservative complaint since the civil rights era, when white Southerners insisted news outlets were slanting their stories against segregation. During his presidential campaign in 1964, U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona complained that the media was against him, an accusation that has been repeated by every Republican presidential candidate since.

Exhausted by the news? Here are 6 strategies to stay informed without getting overwhelmed − or misled by misinformation

  Political spin is nothing new, and identifying reliable news and information can be hard to do during any presidency. But the return of Donald Trump to the White House has reignited debates over truth, accountability, and the role of media in a deeply divided America.

  Misinformation is an umbrella term that covers all kinds of false and misleading content, and there is lots of it out there.

  During Trump’s chaotic first presidency, the president himself promoted false claims about COVID-19, climate change, and the 2020 election.

What should journalists do when the facts don’t matter?

  Most people agree that actual facts matter – in such activities as debate, discussion, and reporting. Once facts are gathered, verified, and distributed, informed decision-making can proceed in such important exercises as voting.

  But what happens when important, verified facts are published and broadcast widely, yet the resulting impact proves underwhelming – or even meaningless? If vital facts fail to affect the news audiences they intend to inform?

  This is the conundrum facing American journalism after Nov. 5, 2024.

What is 'catch and kill' journalism?

  The First Amendment protects the freedom of press, meaning the government cannot interfere with journalists’ work or punish them for what they report.

  However, the First Amendment doesn’t shield journalists and news outlets in all cases. Libel, defamation, and plagiarism, among other things, are not protected.

  Even with free press protections, journalists could be prevented from reporting a story, though not by government officials legally stopping them or threatening them with jail. Another way some stories do not get reported is “catch and kill journalism.”

Journalism’s trust problem is about money, not politics

  Journalism faces a credibility crisis. Only 32% of Americans report having “a great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in news reporting – a historical low.

  Journalists generally assume that their lack of credibility is a result of what people believe to be reporters’ and editors’ political bias. So they believe the key to improving public trust is to banish any traces of political bias from their reporting.

Objectivity in journalism: A fair but flawed idea?

  A common critique of news today is that journalists have an “agenda.” People want journalism to present facts, not opinions or biases. It’s a noble wish.

  The First Amendment protects freedom of the press, but it does not require news outlets to be “objective.”

  You’re not alone if you have ever read, watched, or listened to a news story and thought, “That’s not objective journalism.” Everyone has encountered journalism that isn’t truly objective. That’s because humans who report, edit, and produce news can’t truly be objective, no matter how hard they try.

What you do matters

  After spending a few days in Washington, D.C. recently for an editors conference, I found myself with a few hours before my plane back to Nashville and decided to go to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

  The museum opened in early 1993; two decades later, it was still packed, and that’s a good thing. The phrases “never forget” and “what you do matters” are posted in multiple places around the museum, a reminder of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany’s regime and a caution to be alert for signs a government might be proceeding down a similar authoritarian path.

Anyone can claim to be a journalist or a news organization and publish lies with almost total impunity

  Headlines in early March 2023 implied Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch had made a damning confession. He had affirmed that some of his most important journalists were reporting that the 2020 presidential election was a fraud – even though they knew they were propagating a lie.

  It was an admission during pretrial testimony in a libel lawsuit filed against Fox by a voting machine company that says it was defamed by the lie. For journalism practitioners and devotees, the admission should signal the end of the Fox News empire.

  Nope. It didn’t.

Democrat or Republican, Americans are angry, frustrated and overwhelmed

  As the country looks ahead to President Donald Trump’s possible impeachment proceedings, as social scientists, we anticipate that not only will the Americans’ opinions be polarized, but so will their emotions.

  Based on our research, we believe that impeachment stories will likely feel increasingly more personal, passionate, and irritating to people as the proceedings unfold. For some, this will draw them in, while others will likely turn off from the news.

Misinformation, hoaxes and hyperpartisan news

  “Misinformation” is Dictionary.com’s word of the year. The site defines it as “false information that is spread, regardless of whether there is intent to mislead” and is careful to distinguish it from disinformation, which does require a deliberate intent to mislead. Note that that the word of the year is not “fake news.” That’s SO 2016.

  For anyone concerned about the varieties of false information, the recent U.S. midterm elections were seen as a test of whether or not, in the past two years, we’ve learned anything about how to deal with them.

Lata Nott: The lazy person’s guide to being a good citizen

  You sometimes suspect that you’re not as well-informed as you should be. When you read about that study that found that middle school kids were unable to distinguish paid advertisements from news stories, you shook your head sadly — then secretly wondered if you would do much better. You’ve heard that most people are so entrenched in their own beliefs that even indisputable facts can’t change their minds, and would really like to believe you’re different from most people. (But doesn’t everyone think that?) You have, on at least a couple of occasions, pretended that you were familiar with a subject you actually barely understood.

Gene Policinski: Hello Facebook! Welcome to the wide, wild world of news media

  Forgive me for a little old-fashioned smirking when following the digital-era dilemma of Facebook having to own up to some human involvement in its tidy, algorithmic universe.

  Millennials and others were outraged — outraged! — at the recent disclosure that the internet social media giant’s “trending topics” report may have had more than a smidge of real people decision-making involved in the daily determination of what’s hot in posted news.

  On May 9, web tech blog Gizmodo carried a report citing an anonymous former contractor who claimed that while he worked on the “topics” report, he and colleagues were directed to regularly insert liberal topics into the report while suppressing conservative subjects.

Gene Policinski: With Post purchase, Bezos has chance to remake newspaper model

  Jeff Bezos made it clear in founding Amazon.com that he can compete in the marketplace.

  We’ll just have to wait and see if he can, and will, do the same thing in the marketplace of ideas — that equally combative zone protected and preserved by the First Amendment’s provision for a free press.

Gene Policinski: Watergate Era: ‘A’ peak in journalism

  Forty years ago this week, The Washington Post – and its self-described “young and hard-digging reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein” – took home a Pulitzer Prize for public service for coverage of the Watergate scandal.

  Other winners in journalism that year included the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times and Knight Newspapers, and entries from several local newspapers  –all part of what we today would call “mainstream media.”

Sam Fulwood III: The American media diet

  My cyber-friend Eric Garland, whom I wrote about late last year, recently undertook an intriguing experiment. He eschewed U.S.-based English-language mass media for a week and replaced it with news from around the globe that was written, produced, and/or broadcast in languages that are foreign to most Americans and targeted to a public beyond our shores.

  Garland, a writer who focuses on future trends, is one of the smartest people I’ve come across. He’s something of a Renaissance man: the author of three books, an in-demand orator, and a groovy bass player. He also travels the world and studies global cultures and languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Japanese.

Ken Paulson: After Newtown: The real toll of ‘journalistic bedlam’

  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so much flawed reporting as in the news coverage surrounding the horrific school shootings in Newtown, Conn.

  Errors abounded. News organizations identified the wrong man as the shooter, reported that the shooter’s mother was a teacher at the school and mischaracterized both the killers’ weapons and his access to the school. One flawed report said that the killer had a run-in with teachers at the school the day before the massacre.