Title: Why Do Americans Distrust the Media? - The Atlantic
Headings: Why Do Americans Distrust the Media?
Business
Why Do Americans Distrust the Media?
Donald Trump, anti-elite sentiment, and the dark side of media abundance

Content: Beyond the moral rot at the head of Fox News and Trump’s embrace of Breitbart (the Internet’s most crowded den of race-baiting conspiracy theories), even many major newspapers failing to properly cover the candidates’ many flaws. If public trust in the press has gone up in flames, there are more than enough media organizations to be held liable for the arson. 2. It’s the elections’ fault. As the first graph indicates, American trust in mass media seems to decline around presidential elections. It fell in 2004, and again in 2008, and again in 2012, and now it's collapsed in 2016. Perhaps the hyper-politization of elections, which cleaves the electorate and entrenches two opposing viewpoints on a single national story, erodes public faith that “the media” can be fair to both camps. This election campaign, however, is exceptional for the fact that Trump routinely so denounces the media for being unfair to him. This would explain why faith in the mainstream press has collapsed among middle-aged Republicans. Trump has even questioned conservative staples like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, which would explain why we’re seeing an unprecedented drop in faith among the GOP in this election.