International | Towards a revival of journalistic neutrality in the United States?

CNN’s new management is currently evaluating its headliners with a definite objective: can they put partisanship aside and demonstrate an appearance of neutrality? Will other organizations follow this example?

Valerie Beaudoin
Associate researcher at the Observatory on the United States of the Raoul-Dandurand-UQAM Chair

A general loss of confidence

The loss of confidence in the media did not appear with the COVID-19 pandemic or with the presidency of Donald Trump, but it was clearly exacerbated by these elements. It is true that it is increasingly difficult for Americans to find a reliable and non-partisan source of information. Whether it’s Fox News on the right, or CNN whose anti-Trump petticoat protruded daily when the latter was in power, the divide in the mass media has exacerbated distrust of journalists in the United States.

Between 2016 and 2021, trust in the media halved among Republican voters, from 70% to 35%, according to the Pew Research Center.

A much less draconian trend among Democrats, but still notable. Although about 6 in 10 Americans have some confidence in the media, these are not enviable statistics. Which raises questions: do they consume news, and if so, from what sources does it come? Knowing that nearly half of Americans get their information from social media, it is easy to conclude that many of them have abandoned traditional information in favor of that disseminated by the Facebooks and Twitters of this world, which can have the effect of reducing exposure to a variety of different information.

Although the phenomenon is not unique to the United States, it came last in a recent survey of trust in media organizations conducted by Reuters in 46 countries.

Partisan media?

The Trump administration’s repeated attacks on the media or, as the president liked to call them, the “fake news media”, have widened the ideological divide between several major newspapers or news outlets.

Although they deny it, the New York TimesMSNBC, CNN and other so-called “liberal” outlets have not hesitated to set aside journalistic neutrality in favor of a strategy of defending their own integrity by dragging Trump into the dust.

In contrast, outlets like Fox News may at times resemble state television acting as the Trump administration’s megaphone with the choice of editorial content presented. This bias of emissions like Fox and Friends or Tucker Carlson Tonightto name just two, caused commentators and hosts to jump ship, like Chris Wallace, for example, who moved on to CNN.

All this without mentioning the hyper-partisan media which, although marginal, has grown in importance in 2020 with the disputed election results. We need only think of One American News Network (OANN) or Newsmax, which regularly host the most extreme and controversial elements of the Republican Party on their sets and which have served as a mouthpiece for Trump’s “big lie”. , the theory that the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden.

The objectified, a utopian ideal?

The Biden presidency has had the effect of a return to normal for many journalists, with almost daily press briefings from the White House, greater transparency and good faith exchanges with correspondents.

In this context of “re-normalization” of relations between the Biden administration and the mass media and while we are witnessing a change of direction at CNN, the question of objectivity has returned to the fore. Is it possible? Researchers do not agree on this subject, but this search for objectivity as a criterion must allow Americans to inform themselves without the presentation of an obvious bias.

According to the digital media Axios, the management of CNN wants to pass a test of objectivity to its headliners to move away from the trend that has characterized the organization for a few years. Journalists, commentators and hosts could be shown the door if their tone is too partisan. The goal is to be nuanced in the choice of questions and guests as well as to avoid appearing to do the PR for Democrats. It was also recently announced that the use ad nauseam of the “breaking news” banner was a thing of the past in order to prevent forced sensationalism.

A noble exercise in theory, but whose effectiveness remains to be demonstrated in practice. Optimistic observers will see it as a victory for journalistic neutrality, but the most pessimistic could justly see it as another great public relations operation.

Can we expect the right-wing media, the Fox News, Newsmax and OANN of this world, to initiate a similar reflection? We can always dream.