By Donald Gilpin

“How trustworthy is the media?” was the central question as a distinguished panel of four experts discussed “Journalism in a Time of Doubt and Disinformation” on November 11, before an overflow audience of about 200 in Princeton University’s McCormick Hall.

In an era of intense partisanship, rampant “fake news,” and the unruly challenges of the world of the internet, the field of journalism increasingly suffers from lack of trust.

At the discussion sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the Princeton University Sociology Department, the Humanities Council, and the Program in Journalism, the panelists included Princeton University Professor of Religion, Philosophy, and the University Center for Human Values Andrew Chignell; Visiting Professor of Writing, Former Executive Editor of the New York Times, and Founding Editor-in-Chief of the Marshall Project Bill Keller; Princeton University History Professor Kevin M. Kruse; and National Public Radio Foreign Correspondent Deborah Amos. Princeton Journalism Professor and Journalism Program Director Joe Stephens moderated the proceedings.

The speakers were unanimous in lamenting the long slide of public trust in media. In 2014 for the first time a majority of Americans stated that they did not trust the media, according to a Gallup poll, and in other recent polls the only institution trusted less than the news media is the U.S. Congress. Young people trust the media less than older people, nine of 10 Republicans say they have lost trust in the news media in the last decade, and 75 percent of independents, 65 percent of moderates, and half of the liberals polled say they have lost trust in media in the past 10 years.

“One of the most critical issues of our time is trying to figure out how we can deliver verified facts to citizens in a democracy in order to keep democracy healthy and functioning,” said Stephens in his introduction to the panel.

“The news media rates lower than anyone would wish in a healthy democracy,” he added, “at a time when citizens need verifiable and trustworthy facts more than ever.”

The panelists did not hold back in describing the current state of distrust and disinformation, but they also shared a wide range of suggestions for combating this dearth of truth and trust.

Noting that “we are having this conversation in a post-truth world” as well as possibly ”a post-trust world,” Amos said, “Really what we’re asking is ‘Is democracy in trouble?’”

An award-winning foreign correspondent, she noted that the elimination of the fairness doctrine in journalism in 1987, followed by “other thunderbolts” in the arrival of the digital era that “upended journalists’ business model, cost local and national newspapers, and invited a whole new distrust of media.”

She went on to criticize “the fractured media landscape and current state of hyper-partisanship,” in which media has become “more subjective in its reporting and in the way it is consumed.”

Amos closed her remarks with an appeal for greater media literacy, citing a study of Iraqis, whose media sources are all hyperpartisan, but, as a matter of life or death, they need to see the news, so they watch five or six different broadcasts every day. “They don’t cocoon their viewing the way Americans do. They don’t watch only the outlets that make them comfortable. Perhaps that would be the best outcome for Americans.”

Emphasizing the need to combat the lies that prevail in the media, Kruse presented a brief history of the conservative case against the news media, from a Spiro Agnew speech in 1969 to Kellyanne Conway’s recent pitch for “alternative facts.” Kruse pointed out,“It’s not just conservative spin now, but an entirely different set of facts.”

Kruse mentioned a recent statement by legendary journalist Bill Moyers, where he said that he fears for democracy for the first time in his life. Kruse quoted Moyers, who said, “A democracy can die from too many lies, and we’re getting close to that terminal moment unless we reverse the obsession with lies that are being fed around the country.”

“That’s the challenge for the news media today and for all of us as well,” Kruse concluded. “The most consequential chapters are being written as we speak.”

Keller echoed the other panelists’ concerns over “an enormous partisan divide” and a “crisis in trust,” and admitted that it is difficult in the current climate for consumers to know what to believe. He described “polarization and paralysis, as democracy corrodes from within.”

He noted, however, that “the best antidote to bad journalism is good journalism.” He cited The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and National Public Radio in pointing out that “the best news outlets are enjoying a boom in readers or listeners” as “one unanticipated benefit of the Trump presidency.”

Keller called for more investment of time and money in thorough investigative reporting, with embedded reporters who spend time really listening. “You get what you pay for,” he said, emphasizing that the best journalism is expensive.

Keller went on to urge that social media be held responsible for the news they distribute, that schools and colleges develop more courses in media literacy, and that universities take on the responsibility for fostering responsible journalists and audiences.