The Demise of Credibility in Journalism

Earlier this week, Jon Stewart blasted CNN’s poor report of tragically missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. In the video below, he pokes fun at the useless information CNN reporters provide viewers, using ridiculous props – holographic planes, plastic model planes, you name it – to provide visual aid to their “news coverage”.

Stewart wasn’t kidding. CNN’s front page was flooded with the text “ALL LIVES LOST” (in all caps and in what looked like size 400 font), and large photographs of sobbing Chinese and Malaysian mothers, sisters, and daughters. They published a series of articles discussing bizarre theories of what may have happened to the 227 people on board. Black holes? Alien invasions? It was insensitive to the families of missing passengers and a huge waste of time for people who just wanted to know what was actually happening.

So what news sources can we rely on? Most sites, like CNN, let tragedies like these flood headlines for weeks, dragging stories out until there is nothing left to possibly report. Driven by profit and viewer ratings, journalists cover sex scandals, murders and suicides, and brush over things that matter, like education reform issues and government policies.

In addition, the influence social media platforms have on today’s news culture makes it increasingly difficult to differentiate between what’s true and what’s false. Current events are so over-analyzed, torn apart, and regurgitated countless times by online news sources that we think it to be credible. We don’t pause to think that what we’re reading could possibly be inaccurate information.

Looking to skip the stupid opinions and over the top analysis? Curious to find out what’s actually happening in the world today? The good old-fashioned New York Times is probably your safest bet.