How Can I Trust The Mainstream Media? (with Jon Ward)

Good Faith

News, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

5 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2024

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is it true that “you can’t believe” anything you read? Can we consume news with a mindset other than cynicism, outrage, or fear?

Host Curtis Chang welcomes journalist and author Jon Ward to discuss why Christians need to care about a well-functioning news culture. With an AP poll on mainstream media showing trust at an all-time low, they explore the reasons behind this crisis—political isolation, social media's influence, and potential media bias. Together, they offer a framework for healthy news consumption, focusing on the postures of spectator, student, and servant, while Jon shares his personal strategies for staying informed in a fractured media landscape.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Good Faith podcast. I'm your host, Curtis Chang, and the Good Faith podcast.
0:21.6	I'm your host, Curtis Chang.
0:23.7	And the Good Faith podcast is a production of redeeming Babel.
0:26.8	And it's where friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world.
0:32.3	The last few episodes of Good Faith, we've been discussing the election and its specific aftermath.
0:38.5	And I think it's time to start pulling back from the election itself and examine some bigger
0:43.5	issues of how we make sense of the world because the election exposed how we are struggling
0:50.0	to make sense of the world. Many people responded to the election results with some disbelief,
0:56.2	like how could the other side vote the way they did? Don't they know X, Y, or Z? And the answer is,
1:04.6	well, the other side actually probably doesn't know X, Y, or Z. And the other side doesn't know X, Y, or Z. And the other
1:10.2	side doesn't know that because X, Y, or Z isn't in their news feed.
1:15.6	In fact, both sides increasingly distrust the news itself.
1:21.4	The Gallup survey, which is one of the most reliable surveys about this topic, has shown a dramatic decline in American trust in news.
1:30.3	Back in 1976, 76, 72% Americans said that they trusted mass news media.
1:37.7	By 2023, that 72% had declined to 32%.
1:45.0	News widespread has become almost a dirty word,
1:49.5	a distrusted concept.
1:53.0	And I believe that this decline in the trust,
1:55.5	in the very concept of reliable news,
1:58.5	matters for Christians.
2:00.0	It matters beyond current day politics, which I want to move beyond.
2:04.5	Because the gospel depends on the idea that it is possible to get reliable news about the world.
	...

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