LAST WEEK, A WASHINGTON POST headline provoked a collective groan of embarrassment: apparently “seven percent of all American adults” think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Unsurprisingly, The Internet took notice. …
Those of us concerned with news literacy and public trust in media feel let down when one of these stories fools us across such a wide array of platforms. The problem isn’t this one survey and subsequent coverage. The evergreen problem is that if we feel like we can’t trust journalists to vet the small stuff for us, we worry that we can’t trust them with the big stuff, either. CONT.
Glendora Meikle, Columbia Journalism Review