Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Axios and Politico, spoke out about the effects of news and how trustworthy the field is right now. VandeHei was interviewed to promote his new book, but the subject of the interview finally moved to the field of journalism.
An interesting fact that the interviewer brought up was that more than half of Americans were very worried about the media sharing false information. People don’t trust journalists, so VandeHei said, “I think we in the media have to be a little more humble.” We also need to be aware that our job is to be clinical when we give the facts.
“Try to get to the closest approximation of the truth,” he said. “If we mess it up, be humble enough to say so, and maybe stop tweeting and acting in ways that make people doubt the work you do.”
“I have spent my whole life trying to get as close to the truth as possible.” There are also a lot of groups that have tried to make the work we do seem less important. Honestly, I believe that some media actions have lowered the importance of some of the work we do.
He warned of the bad things that might happen if people don’t believe the media, saying that it might be hard to control them and keep them fully informed.
Three percent more Americans say they trust mainstream media a “fair amount” than say they don’t trust the news at all, according to a Gallup study.
