Chuck Todd and the mainstream media should look in the mirror to understand why they are no longer trusted. They should not blame Americans for their exit away from the mainstream media.
Social Media has Chuck Todd worried
Chuck Todd laments social media’s creeping takeover of much of the mainstream media without taking responsibility for its eventual permanent decline.
“Today I am obsessed with how voters get their news,” Todd said. “Since the last presidential election, there’s been a big swing. Nearly one in five voters say they get their news primarily from social media. That’s nearly triple the percentage from four years ago. Fewer people now say they get their news from newspapers. You almost see a direct switch there. And as you can see as newspapers lose readers, social media picks up new followers. So why is this a problem? Because nothing has done more to screw up the media relationship with viewers and readers, than people blockading themselves in their own ideological silos. They read only what they already agree with. Information flow has gone from embracing new ideas to screening sources for daily affirmation. And one result of that is distrust of any source that challenges your already held world views. In other words, if you disagree with me you are wrong or worse. … People aren’t consuming unbiased media; they are not consuming any of it now other than their own world view. And that is bad for democracy. Voters need to break out of their social media bubble and figure it out.”
Todd shows he does not understand what is going on in social media and why. He then suggested that Liberals read some Conservative media and other points of view, and vice versa. The media is not unbiased at all. In going to social media Americans have the opportunity to get many points of view. The mainstream media have become a status quo media solely promoting news that ensures corporate and wealthy benefactors are not maligned.
Bloggers that are posting in social media use the mainstream media and alternate media from various sources to build reality based news, unlike the mainstream media. One should remember that mainstream media allowed misinformation about Obamacare, the stimulus, and many other programs, issues, and events to get plausible validity. Why would those in the know not migrate consumer of news elsewhere?
Chuck Todd launched a similar complaint before. I wrote about it in the piece titled “Mainstream Press In Fear Of Internet Virality of Mann & Ornstein Critique” where Mann & Ornstein slammed the mainstream news media.
Until mainstream media is disassociated from corporate control, the migration will continue. The distrust will justifiably continue.