A new essay from Nieman Lab pushes back against the common narrative that the internet and social media destroyed public faith in journalism. The author argues that Americans have harbored grave doubts about the press for decades, long before digital platforms existed. The steady erosion of media trust in the United States began around 1970, and the author says that history has been badly misread.
The essay notes that this decline unfolded across very different political climates—times of intense polarization and times of relative calm alike. That pattern, the author suggests, undercuts any simple explanation blaming specific technologies or partisan eras. Instead, the roots of today's skepticism run deeper than the current media environment.
Because the piece is an opinion essay, it offers an interpretive argument rather than new data. Still, it serves as a reminder that the so-called golden age of press trust was never as golden as it is often portrayed.