From: allin
Confidence in media institutions has significantly declined over recent years. This trend is reflected in public polling data and concerns about the role of search engines in information dissemination [00:41:41].
Declining Trust in Media
Gallup poll data indicates a general downward trend in public trust across various institutions [00:41:52]. Specifically, trust in television news dropped from 16% to 11%, before slightly recovering to 14% between 2021 and 2023 [00:42:13]. A substantial 40% of Americans report having no trust in mass media at all [00:42:30].
Confidence in mass media also varies significantly by political affiliation:
- Democrats: 58% confidence [00:42:41]
- Independents: 29% confidence [00:42:44]
- Republicans: 11% confidence [00:42:47]
The decline in trust is attributed to several factors:
- Commoditization of Information Traditional media outlets have moved away from merely providing data and information, as this has become widely available through the internet and other sources [00:43:15].
- Shift to Emotive Content Media companies have transformed into “content businesses” that aim to incite emotion in readers, viewers, or listeners to drive engagement and clicks [00:43:52]. This has led to content that appears biased and partisan [00:44:06].
- Rise of Alternative Media Platforms like podcasts, blogs, and social media provide direct, authentic conversations, allowing individuals to consume information and form their own conclusions without feeling “told what the truth is by some fake authority” [00:45:40]. This shift empowers individuals to separate signal from noise [00:46:00].
"The Legacy Media companies have effectively become emotive content companies in order to drive clicks, drive views, sell ads. That's really all this whole story is." [00:44:51]
Impact on Elections
Podcasts are predicted to play a significant role in upcoming elections, similar to how social media influenced the 2016 election [00:46:21]. The long-form, unscripted format of podcasts allows candidates to demonstrate their personalities and policy knowledge in a way that differs from traditional media portrayals [00:48:07]. For example, a three-hour interview with a candidate on a major podcast can show a “normal, funny guy who actually knows a lot about policy,” providing a starkly different impression from how the media might portray them [00:49:09].
Podcasts, alongside social media, are seen as direct-to-consumer channels that bypass traditional media gatekeepers, allowing the public to define candidates rather than the establishment [00:46:37].
Search Engine Bias
Concerns have been raised regarding bias in Google’s search algorithms and YouTube, particularly in relation to political figures and content [00:55:51].
was suppressed in YouTube search." [00:56:47]
Observations and examples of alleged bias include:
- Suppressed Content Despite an interview between a prominent podcaster and a former president garnering massive views, it was reportedly difficult to find the full episode via YouTube search [00:56:06]. Instead, search results favored shorter, monetized clips or negative news articles [00:55:01].
- Prioritization of Negative News When searching for political figures, search engines like Google are observed to prioritize news articles, often displaying negative coverage or articles from obscure publications over the main content or neutral sources [00:57:02].
- Algorithmic Design One explanation for this behavior is that search algorithms are primarily designed to increase advertising dollars and session length [00:54:18]. Content that isn’t monetized directly, like full podcast episodes, tends to rank lower than clips that generate ad revenue [00:55:01].
- Mass Flagging It has been suggested that a large number of users flagging content as “inappropriate” can automatically hide videos from search results while they are being investigated [00:59:32].
- Internal Bias and Media Landscape The overwhelming majority of journalists at publications are left-leaning (estimated at 95%), resulting in a Corpus of news that is indexed by search engines which is predominantly left-leaning [01:07:06]. Employee political donations in tech companies also show a strong skew towards Democrats (often over 90%), which some argue could be a simple explanation for the perceived bias in search results [01:07:43].
Tech companies, including Google and Facebook, are reportedly aware of these claims of bias and are sensitive to the perception of losing trust, customers, and revenue [01:00:48].