There’s an old saying along the lines of “everyone trusts the news until they talk about your job.”
This is something of a selection bias. Generally speaking, if you don’t trust a news broadcast then you won’t watch it. So of course you’re going to be predisposed to trust the news sources you do listen to. Until the news source bumps up against some of your prior info/intuition, at which point you start experiencing skepticism.
This means that you’re only ever going to get the most surface level info, even when the talking heads claim to be doing deep dives on a topic.
Investigative journalism has historically been a big part of the industry. You do get a few punchy “If it bleeds, it leads” hit pieces up front, but the Main Story tends to be the result of some more extensive investigation and coverage. I remember my home town of Houston had Marvin Zindler, a legendary beat reporter who would regularly put out interconnected 10-15 minute segments that offered continuous coverage on local events. This was after a stint at a municipal Consumer Fraud Prevention division that turned up numerous health code violations and sales frauds (he was allegedly let go by an incoming sheriff with ties to the local used car lobby, after Zindler exposed one too many odometer scams).
But investigative journalism costs money. And its not “business friendly” from a conservative corporate perspective, which can cut into advertising revenues. So it is often the first line of business to be cut when a local print or broadcast outlet gets bought up and turned over for syndication.
That doesn’t detract from a general popular appetite for investigative journalism. But it does set up an adversarial economic relationship between journals that do carry investigative reports and those more focused on juicing revenues.
This is something of a selection bias. Generally speaking, if you don’t trust a news broadcast then you won’t watch it. So of course you’re going to be predisposed to trust the news sources you do listen to. Until the news source bumps up against some of your prior info/intuition, at which point you start experiencing skepticism.
Investigative journalism has historically been a big part of the industry. You do get a few punchy “If it bleeds, it leads” hit pieces up front, but the Main Story tends to be the result of some more extensive investigation and coverage. I remember my home town of Houston had Marvin Zindler, a legendary beat reporter who would regularly put out interconnected 10-15 minute segments that offered continuous coverage on local events. This was after a stint at a municipal Consumer Fraud Prevention division that turned up numerous health code violations and sales frauds (he was allegedly let go by an incoming sheriff with ties to the local used car lobby, after Zindler exposed one too many odometer scams).
But investigative journalism costs money. And its not “business friendly” from a conservative corporate perspective, which can cut into advertising revenues. So it is often the first line of business to be cut when a local print or broadcast outlet gets bought up and turned over for syndication.
That doesn’t detract from a general popular appetite for investigative journalism. But it does set up an adversarial economic relationship between journals that do carry investigative reports and those more focused on juicing revenues.