OPINION: Bias in Mainstream Media May Also Be A Reason For The 'Brutal Wave of Media Layoffs'
Americans are still getting their news, but fewer and fewer are getting it from "mainstream media."
After a week of what TheWrap called a ‘brutal wave of media layoffs,’ many media outlets and their writers are lamenting mainstream media’s downsizing by turning their attention on external causal factors without any consideration that they, too, may be contributors to their financial misfortunes.
This past week, Axios called the downsizing a ‘mainstream media bloodbath,’ as the online outlet reported layoffs at media organizations like Condé Nast, Forbes, Insider, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Daily News, and Sports Illustrated.
While blame for the reductions in force (RIFs) are being attributed to a variety of factors—from hedge fund owners at New York’s Daily News to union busting at Forbes—it’s clear that there is more plaguing mainstream media than “it’s management’s fault” or “corporate greed(!).”
Unfortunately, however, following last week’s ‘brutal wave of media layoffs,’ very few journalists seem to be reflecting on the fact that they are not blameless victims. Rather, they may be contributory to their own financial misfortunes.
According to Bloomberg, “the broader issue is the decline in advertising, including digital spots, long thought to be the savior of the business.”
"It's just harder and harder for news organizations to be profitable," Laura Castaneda, associate dean at USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, told TheWrap.
If this is the case, one might question why are so many Americans turning off mainstream media?
“Americans are suffering from news fatigue, inundated with major stories like the coming election and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine,” explains the New York Times. “Those who do follow the news have increasingly turned to social media and anti-establishment sites that exist outside legacy organizations.”
Is ‘news fatigue’ to blame, or could it be ‘bias fatigue?’
In October, a Gallup survey revealed that trust in media is at an all-time low, tied with 2016, the previous historic low.
Although individuals who identify as Democrats have more trust in the media than those who identify as Republican, Gallup noted, “the latest gap of 47 points is the narrowest since 2016.”
Journalists less trusted than lawyers and bankers? In a separate 2023 Gallup survey, overall, Americans placed journalists below that of lawyers, real estate agents and even bankers in terms of ‘honesty and ethics.’
Findings not new.
In 2020, the Knight Foundation and Gallup released a “landmark” study entitled, “American Views 2020: Trust, Media and Democracy.”
In the study, the organizations’ survey of 20,000 Americans and found that:
Nearly half (46%) of all Americans think the media is very biased. Fifty-seven percent say their own news sources are biased, and 69% are concerned about bias in the news others are getting. Nine percent — driven largely by conservatives — say distrusted media are trying to ruin the country.
Americans think the media is pushing an agenda. Three in four people (70%) worry that owners of media companies are influencing coverage. They also suspect that inaccuracies in reporting are purposeful, with 52% believing that reporters misrepresent the facts, and 28% believing reporters make them up entirely.
Distrust of the media cuts along partisan lines.* Sixty-seven percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of the media, and 58% say attacks on the media are justified. But only 20% of Democrats have an unfavorable view, and 66% say that attacks are not justified. [Emphasis in original]
[* As stated above, this Knight Foundation/Gallup survey was published in 2020. Distrust of media along party lines has only gotten worse—even among Democrats—since then.]
Americans still get the news—from other sources.
While Americans are turning away from mainstream media, which is impacting journalists’ jobs, Americans are still getting their news.
Reporting on a Pew study, last year, Axios noted that an increasing number of Americans are now getting their news through podcasts.
“Of the roughly half (49%) of Americans that say they've listened to a podcast in the past year, about two-thirds (67%) say news has been discussed on the podcasts they've listened to,” Axios noted.
What we see at LaborUnionNews.com aggregating the news.
Since launching LaborUnionNews.com in 2022 as a news aggregation site about today’s unions, we’ve posted well over 30,000 links to articles from nearly every source, regardless of bias.
Depending on the media source (which includes union news releases), we know the biases of the source will either be overtly biased, or more covert.
Sites like the American Progress, CPUSA, the Jacobin and WSWS.org (which stands for Worldwide Socialist Web Site)will publish articles and op-eds that clearly favor labor unions, while other sites like the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation are on the opposite end.
Meanwhile, many of the “mainstream news” sites, like Associated Press, Bloomberg, CNN, HuffPost, the New York Times and Washington Post tend to lean more pro-union (some more obvious than others), while sites like Breitbart, the Daily Caller, Free Beacon and others are more to the so-called “right.”
As an aggregator site, we publish these links because there is something newsworthy about the accompanying article and trust our subscribers to identify the biases within the article.
Here is what we’ve noticed since launching LaborUnionNews.com: Since launching LaborUnionNews.com in 2022, we’ve seen that there is a bias in many of the “mainstream news” articles that we post.
We’ve also seen that many of the articles on any particular labor issue, from any particular publication, mirrors that of other publications.
As a result, although there is occasional ‘original’ reporting, much of the content published by “mainstream media” serves as more of an “echo chamber” of the same or similar opinions.
Given that Americans are leaning away from biased news reporting, it only makes sense that their tases are turning away from mainstream media and job cuts are going to be the result.
Unfortunately, however, following last weeks ‘brutal wave of media layoffs,’ very few journalists seem to be reflecting on the fact that they are not blameless victims. Rather, they may be contributory to their financial misfortunes.