Election Year: How To Trust the News
The U.S. presidential election is less than a year away. If that doesn’t give you the shakes, this might: Consider for a moment how it may seem like half of your relatives appear to have become insane in the last decade. Doesn’t it seem like everyone has at least one “crazy uncle” or “wackadoodle niece”? And yet, this should also give us pause: What if we are actually that person?
How could each of us seek to better understand the world so that we can fulfill our moral responsibilities to neighbors, strangers, and the needy through a more abundant, engaged civic life?
This piece addresses a small but necessary part of that puzzle: The news we trust matters.
Free news outlets want your brains.
The rest of this essay is a practical how-to guide. It is inspired by the most recent Oxford Reuters Institute report on trust in news (written for news organizations), and it builds on and adds to the tips on how to read the news outlined in this Public Square Magazine article from last campaign season (written for readers). We also write this as two people with decades of combined experience in researching news, media, and society.
Here are nine strategies for how, if at all, to trust the news:
To read the entire article: Public Square Magazine