Journalism excellence, meet news fatigue

Journalism is facing a tough crowd these days.

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week, a celebration of excellence in journalism and other fields. But the announcement came just days after the release of a study detailing the public’s fatigue with news and its mistrust of the sources that deliver that news.

The Pulitzers highlighted the exemplary journalism produced by a beleaguered industry, a good deal of that work chronicling Donald Trump and friends. Reuters was honored for documenting Trump’s expansion of executive power to target his political foes. Similarly, the New York Times was awarded a prize for exposing Trump’s exploiting his position as president to enrich his family and allies. The Associated Press won for its investigation of state-of-the-art tools for mass surveillance, used in China — and the U.S. Border Patrol.

Meanwhile, the Media Insight Project — a collaboration by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research; the American Press Institute; Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications; and the Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism — released a study focused on the difference in media habits between teens and adults.

Some of the differences are unremarkable and predictable, such as legacy vs. social media. But the similarity in viewpoints across all age groups was striking. According to the report:

While most feel capable of finding relevant content and identifying trustworthy information, the emotional toll they feel in doing so is considerable. Very few Americans say news gives them a hopeful view of the world; and a substantial portion report feeling overwhelmed or finding news too stressful.

On top of fatigue is the matter of trust:

Confidence in news sources is low across the board, with fewer than half of teens and adults expressing a great deal of confidence in any source type, though local news ranks highest. Local news is viewed as most trustworthy, followed by national news, independent creators, and AI chatbots. Each source type has distinct perceived strengths: local news ranks highest for providing useful information (41%), while independent creators are seen by roughly one in four as best at treating all sides fairly.

Surveys can be useful, but they tend to lack granularity and nuance. I’ve sat in too many meetings in which people assigned meaning to data where there was none to be found.

So I didn’t find in this study a convincing explanation for why people give local media more credence than national news. Which gives me an opportunity to assign meaning to the data. Ahem.

People are free to disbelieve accurate news from national sources because that skepticism comes at no cost. National news is a story told by others about events at a distance. Tangible evidence is a long way off.

The Washington Post won a Pulitzer for its coverage of Trump’s assault on federal agencies and the human impacts of massive budget cuts. But millions didn’t see that story, and millions more probably wouldn’t have believed it.

In contrast, the Seattle Times was awarded for its coverage of catastrophic flooding following a major storm — coverage that its local readers certainly believed and for which they were no doubt grateful.

National news is offered with no irrefutable context. Its first job is to get me to watch or read; securing my belief is a nice-to-have. Local news, in contrast, has community baked into it. You may believe the national news that some distant city is aflame, but if you live in that city, you know a small dumpster fire when you see it.

The study points out that respondents value local news for its usefulness. Whether it’s property taxes, a new development two blocks over, or a cultural event, people can connect local news to their lives in meaningful ways.

The internet and the web gave billions of people the ability to communicate. But those interconnections created new, online communities, some indifferent, some hostile to our traditional communities. Until journalists can craft news in a way that serves the communities in which we live, the erosion of trust is likely to continue.