Americans Don’t Know What to Believe This Election Season

On an October Sunday morning in Muskego, Wis., a rally for President Trump kicked off at local bar, TJ’s Roundabout. Trucks, motorcycles and cars filtered into the surrounding lots and fields, organizing themselves into neat rows to optimize the launch of the planned parade. Closer to the bar was a stage set up alongside outdoor seating and booths selling Trump themed flags, T-shirts and merchandise. People shared drinks, engaged in conversation and signed petitions to recall Democratic Governor Tony Evers. Distinctly lacking, though, at a time when health officials and scientists have recommended them most, were masks.

“Masks are a symbol of fear,” event-goer Blaise Pomeroy said. “The governor has been making illegal mandates based off of fudged numbers.”

Pomeroy’s distrust of government mandates is an example of a growing distrust of media as a whole.

“I started realizing in 2015 the bias of media,” Pomeroy said. “It’s like everyone has this agenda, you can tell in the first few sentences.”

Fifty-eight percent of US adults that lean Republican have no trust at all in news media, or 33% of Americans overall, according to a Gallup poll. On top of that, 63% of Americans who align as Republican, or 38% of all Americans, believe that the coronavirus has been exaggerated, according to a Pew Research poll. This increased distrust of media comes not only during an election year, but in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fueling the increased levels of distrust in news are multiple factors including new levels of polarization, as well as a general distancing from the news, according to Michael Mirer, a professor of media studies at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.

At the heart of polarization is a phenomenon called the hostile media effect. This phenomenon states that rather than an individual changing their opinion when confronted with new facts, they may become more entrenched in their original opinion, and view that news agency as simply hostile against them, according to Mirer.

“More people are coming to news content with preexisting knowledge and strong opinions about the information in front of them,” Mirer said, “meaning they will come to a story already set with a range of critiques to find that story inadequate.”

On top of people’s tendency to view disagreeable stories as hostile is a general downturn in the scale of journalists covering the things that immediately affect them in their community. People are seeing national news focusing on national problems more than they are seeing local news with local issues, according to Mirer.

“It’s tough for news agencies to build trust that way,” Mirer said.

A feeling of bias and hostility is at the forefront of Pomeroy’s own distrust in media. Outlets such as CNN, MSNBC and even sometimes FOX will twist narratives with opinions, he said.

Standing across the way from Pomeroy was Ed Wedelstadt, another rally-goer who has also grown distrustful of American news in recent years.

“Now it’s anything to sell a paper,” Wedelstadt said. “It’s gone to the point where it’s controlled by money.”

“They [journalists] can get blackballed out of the industry if they don’t adhere to what will sell a paper,” Wedelstadt said. “Look at who owns what.”

How to regain Pomeroy’s and Wedelstadt’s trust?

“Presenting just the facts and avoiding the spin,” Pomeroy said.

“Returning to the basics and finding a truth put together from both sides without bias,” Wedelstadt said.

In another corner of the Sunday rally was Mark Kelly, wearing a sweatshirt stating in bold red letters, “CNN – FAKE NEWS.”

“It’s nothing but all propaganda to influence people’s decisions,” Kelly said.

Journalist’s sources are frequently unreliable, and journalists get caught in a problematic system, he said.

Among the media that Kelly does follow are QAnon and The Gateway Pundit, according to Kelly.

Both of these sources, however, feed off of misinformation. The Gateway Pundit is a regular publisher of biased headlines and misinformation, and QAnon is a growing conspiracy theory about a pedophilic sex cult.

An increasing number of Americans have said that they believe QAnon is true, or true in part. Further, a majority of Americans believe that fake news is sowing confusion, many believing they have purposefully or accidentally spread fake news on social media, according to a Pew Research poll.

Seeking to curb fake news is The News Literacy Project

“Being news literate is certainly more important than ever today,” Suzannah Gonzales of The News Literacy Project said.

To be news literate means using multiple methods to discern fact from fiction: pause before sharing information, do extra research, look at who is sharing the information, check the timestamp on the post to make sure it isn’t an old article, according to Gonzales.

A critical skill in discerning fact from fiction is called lateral reading, according to Gonzales.

It is a method pioneered by Sam Wineburg and the Stanford History Education Group in which articles from different sources on the same topic are compared and contrasted to root out possible biases towards information presented, she said.

At the other end of the problem are ways in which news organizations themselves can improve news literacy. Discerning between what is opinionated content and what is journalism and clearly labeling articles as such is an important step in improving the public’s understanding of the matter, according to Gonzales.

“I think there are steps that news organizations can take to make what they do more transparent and that helps to build trust,” Gonzales said.