The State of Journalism and Trust in Media

Steve Adubato goes One-on-One with Brian Carovillano, Managing Editor, Associated Press, to talk about the state of journalism today and how trust is crucial in today’s media.

10/30/19 #2256

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Hi, I'm Steve Adubato. Hopefully I have some good questions on this edition of One on One. I'm pleased to be joined by Brian Carovillano, who is Managing Editor, Associated Press. Good to have you with us. Thanks. Good to be here. For those who don't know what the AP is, go ahead. It is? The AP is an independent news agency that is a membership cooperative of US news organizations. But we cover the world in a totally nonpartisan way. And we are in 250 locations around the world, including places that no other news organization is really present, like North Korea and Iran. We are in all 50 states, including all 50 state houses. And our content appears in 15,000 news outlets around the world, and reaches, by some estimates, half the world's population. We're taping in the Fall of 2019. Early in October. It is, in fact, the anniversary of the murder, the assassination, of a Washington Post columnist in Saudi Arabia. Mm hmm. Significant? That murder? That assassination? The lack of a follow-up in the context of how journalism is seen, not just in this country and viewed by the Trump Administration, but also around the world? Yeah. It... Am I conflating things there? Yeah, it's a horrific tragedy. Standing on its own, the Khashoggi murder is a terrible thing that happened. That a journalist was targeted and murdered for his work, and specifically for his work as a columnist, as an opinion columnist, that was seen by the Saudi government as critical of the government. And the CIA and our country said it was them? Yeah. There's a lot of intelligence that indicates that it was them. I don't think even Mohammed bin Salman is denying that his government carried out the murder. He's just saying that he had nothing to do with it. So taken on its own, it's a horrific tragedy. Taken as part of a larger global trend about how journalism is viewed by governments, and by extension, by people around the world, it's part of this really troubling trend over the last decade or so. It certainly didn't begin with the Trump Administration, in which public trust in news media has been on the decline. There's plenty of data to show that. And I think what we're seeing now is that leaders around the world feel more emboldened to treat journalists in ways that were unthinkable even a generation ago. And it's part of that trend. It's perhaps the most extreme, or one of the most extreme extensions of that trend. But it's not unique to Saudi Arabia or to Turkey or to any of the places... So let's... I'm sorry for interrupting. Let's put this in context. I'm thinking about the 2016 presidential campaign, and on. Mm hmm. And... believe what you will, like the..."