Americans’ trust in legacy media sank to an all-time low in 2024, leading to massive layoffs and audience losses at major news outlets. These are the media’s failures over the past year that likely contributed to this decline. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Chapter 1: What led to the decline in trust in media in 2024?
2024 saw Americans' trust in the legacy media hit an all-time low, with only 31% of people saying they have a great deal or even a fair amount of trust in the biggest outlets that bring us our news. Among independent voters, that number is only 27%.
In fact, according to Gallup, today, the media is the least trusted civic and political institution, behind even Congress, the group that was previously at the bottom of the barrel. In this episode of Morning Wire, Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham looks at the bungled stories, bad reporting, and in some cases, outright deceptions that contributed to media distrust in 2024.
I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. And this is a special edition of Morning Wire. Daily Wire culture reporter Megan Basham joins us now to look back at the year's biggest media fails that are contributing to the public's record low trust. But Megan, before we get into that, can you give us a quick overview on where the industry stands now?
Along with some of the controversies and corrections, there was also a lot of contraction this year in the news industry, and that's notable because it was an election year.
Chapter 2: What were the significant layoffs in the media industry?
Yeah, very true. And I do have to say that the media landscape right now looks, well, bad. It looks really bad. If you'll remember, Georgia, right before the start of the year, we saw substantial layoffs at The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR. And as you said, that's not what you expect to see heading into a major campaign year when media revenues typically tend to increase.
Then if we go back to the beginning of the year, in January, the Los Angeles Times cut more than 20% of its newsroom. Time Magazine cut 15%. And that kind of bad news just continued throughout 2024. By the summer, CNN had laid off 100 people, and they're now reportedly planning to lay off hundreds more. Comcast may sell MSNBC.
And neither of those developments should be surprising when you look at some of the cable news ratings. To put it bluntly, they're a dumpster fire. According to Nielsen data, MSNBC is still down by more than half of what it was averaging up to election night. And CNN is down by slightly less than half, though it didn't have as far to fall because it was already at the bottom of the pack.
And even though I will say both left and right are showing media distrust, so you do have to take that into account when you look at some of those numbers from polling outfits like Gallup. You also have to take into account that Fox News's ratings are way up this year.
Chapter 3: How did media coverage impact public perception of political violence?
They're now beating the ratings of the other cable news outlets combined, suggesting that a lot of former CNN and MSNBC viewers are flocking there.
So I want to get into some of the major doozies that are likely driving a lot of the legacy media's poor performance. Just looking back at this year, what are some of the biggest standouts to you?
You know, for me, the biggest one wasn't an issue where there was clear deception or inaccuracy, but just some really appallingly callous coverage of the most momentous moment of the campaign. And that was the response to the attempt on President-elect Donald Trump's life at that rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th.
That very same night, ABC viewers heard George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz in part blame the victim.
President Trump and his supporters have contributed to this violent rhetoric as well.
Well, absolutely, George.
And then on the print front, the day after Butler, The Atlantic ran a piece that said that, and I'm quoting, the bloodshed Trump has done so much to incite against others has touched him as well. In September, of course, there was a second assassination attempt at Trump's golf course, and you heard similar rhetoric from major media.
Almost immediately after news of that second assassination attempt broke, MSNBC anchor Alex Witt asked political analyst Elise Jordan this.
Do you expect to hear anything from the Trump campaign about toning down the rhetoric, toning down the violence? Or would that be atypical of the former president?
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Chapter 4: What were the major media fails regarding President Biden's mental fitness?
Yeah. And I think you all have called this the cheap fakes video. And that's exactly what they are. They are cheap fakes video. They are done in bad faith. And some of your news organization have been very clear, have stressed that these right wing critics of the president have a credibility problem because of the fact checkers have repeatedly caught them pushing misinformation, disinformation.
Well, Biden's disastrous debate performance at the end of June made it impossible to deny his mental state and made it clear that he really had no chance of winning at that point. Then the coverage changed immediately and many media outlets began calling for him to step aside.
Just one example, on June 21st, the New York Times ran a story which reported that any claims that Biden was suffering from diminished faculties were because of these cheap fakes. But two weeks later, the day after the debate, they ran an editorial calling on him to step down due to his mental lapses. And this was really the pattern that you saw with the legacy outlets across the board.
All right, now moving on to number three. What do you have there? Well, I still don't think we can get away from the election yet because another glaring issue were the fact checks, especially during the debates. For instance, at the ABC debate between Trump and Harris, moderators David Muir and Lindsay Davis fact-checked numerous times, including when Trump was generally correct.
Like when he said, hard to believe they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth. Davis broke in.
There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it's born. Madam Vice President, I want to get your response to President Trump.
Now, this was a pretty semantic fact check, I think, because Harris's own running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, helped repeal a state law that required doctors to render medical aid to a baby that survives an abortion. So in Minnesota, doctors can let born babies die, and that has happened in at least eight cases in that state.
New York and Illinois also repealed laws that require medical care for babies that survive abortion. By the same token, ABC never fact-checked Harris, despite the fact that Harris made a number of false claims. like saying that there were no members of the U.S. military on active duty in a combat zone anywhere around the world. In fact, there are 3,000.
After the same debate, Time magazine wrote that Trump's claim that Harris supported funding sex changes for illegal immigrants was false. It wasn't, and Time later had to issue a correction. So that looked to a lot of people like glaring bias, and we did see something similar with NBC and the vice presidential debate. Their moderator, Margaret Brennan, interrupted J.D.
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Chapter 5: How did legacy media respond to misleading narratives about Biden?
So there's an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. That is not a person coming in, applying for a green card and waiting for 10 years. Thank you, Senator.
So again, a lot of viewers detected bias in that exchange. And then there were ethical issues in the media's favorable treatment of Harris. MSNBC host Al Sharpton, for instance, did not disclose that the Harris campaign made a $500,000 donation to his nonprofit right before he conducted a softball interview with the candidate.
Meanwhile, 60 Minutes was caught having edited their interview with Harris to make what were some pretty meandering, confusing answers to questions more comprehensible. CBS then ignored widespread calls to release the full transcript of the interview so that audiences could judge it for themselves. So would you say most of these fails were related to the election?
Well, definitely, because, of course, that dominated the news cycle for the year. But it wasn't exclusively election moments. When it came to the war in Gaza, major outlets had major egg on their faces when it was revealed that they'd been using inaccurate statistics provided by Hamas, which has, of course, been designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department.
Outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, BBC, Reuters, AP, they all took data disseminated by the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is controlled by Hamas, at face value, and they passed it along to their audiences. For instance, they reported fatality numbers for Palestinian women and children that a later study found were mathematically impossible.
So in essence, you could say they aided Hamas's PR campaign. This kind of credulity when it comes to war coverage led to a really embarrassing incident for CNN just recently here at the close of the year. On December 11th, the network ran a story from foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward in which she encountered a man in an empty Syrian prison.
He told her he'd been detained by the Assad regime for months.
After three months in a windowless cell, he can finally see the sky. The rebel tells him there's no more army, no more prisons, no more checkpoints. Are you serious, he says? Syria is free, he tells him. It's the first time he has heard those words.
Well, when CNN posted the video to social media, users immediately pointed out how inauthentic the man's appearance and behavior seemed, rather like something out of a low-budget movie. And sure enough, within days, a Syrian fact-checking site revealed that the man was really a former intelligence officer for the Assad government.
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Chapter 6: What can we learn from the media's performance in 2024?
Sonny Hostin, co-host on ABC's The View, for instance, had to read a legal disclaimer only a few weeks ago after some comments she made about Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. But I will leave you with one more media fail, Georgia. It's not the biggest of the year, but it is certainly the most expensive.
So back in March, during an interview with South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos made this claim about Donald Trump multiple times.
You've endorsed Donald Trump for president. Judges and two separate juries have found him liable for rape and for defaming the victim of that rape.
Except that wasn't true. And reportedly, Stephanopoulos' producer warned him repeatedly, including in writing, not to make that claim on the air. Stephanopoulos did it anyway. Trump sued. And just a few days ago, ABC agreed to pay $16 million to settle. ABC and Stephanopoulos also issued a joint statement saying that they regret the anchor statements regarding President Donald J. Trump.
Well, in light of some of these numbers and just coming into this new year, it'll be interesting to see if some of these papers and outlets decide to turn over a new leaf. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime.
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