The Center Square reached out to a professor of journalism at Western Washington University for his perspective on how the media’s coverage of Biden’s decline may or may not impact consumers’ trust in the fourth estate
Carleen Johnson
The Center Square
A month after President Joe Biden’s calamitous debate performance against former President Donald Trump, and days after Biden’s decision Sunday not to seek reelection, there are still many questions about how the news media covered – or didn’t cover – Biden’s mental and physical decline in recent months, or even years.
From the onset of the June 27 debate, Biden, 81, struggled, speaking in a weak, raspy voice. He repeatedly tripped over his words and lost his train of thought, often trailing off inaudibly.
Mainstream media outlets were forced to acknowledge Biden’s shockingly bad debate performance.
Right-leaning news organizations were quick to point out that Biden’s frailty and cognitive issues were something they had been covering for months or longer.
The Center Square reached out to a professor of journalism at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., for his perspective on how the media’s coverage of Biden’s decline may or may not impact consumers’ trust in the fourth estate.
Derek Moscato teaches classes in public relations and news media at WWU.
“Unfortunately, depending on what media you subscribe to, you were getting different stories,” Moscato said. “That is until recently, when there has been a broader consensus emerging that there were concerning health issues for the president.”
That could have an impact on reporters and editors.
“It’s going to be tougher to be a journalist and even more with media audiences in general,” Moscato said. “It’s sometimes hard to find out what is actually going on.”
Trust in mainstream media has been under water and declining for years. A March 2024 The Center Square Voters’ Voice poll found that just 43% of Americans say the media is trustworthy, compared with 54% who said it is not trustworthy.
Reflecting on how recent events may impact journalism and the students he teaches – who hope to enter the profession – Moscato said he went back to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics delineating journalists’ rights and responsibilities.
“It’s contingent upon journalists to sometimes get beyond what is presented to [them] through a press office or a politician’s handlers and to get beyond that surface level,” Moscato said.
“For some reporters, they were content to hear he’s in good health and they said that’s good enough for me,” the professor continued. “Until we as a nation saw in that debate that there were some concerns – and that didn’t break down on party lines – it was just acknowledging, yes, there’s an issue.”
Moscato told The Center Square the debate over how the media has handled Biden’s declining health opens up an opportunity to examine corporate newsrooms.
“There’s been gatekeeping in newsrooms, particularly large newsrooms, and that’s a thing in terms of what stories are emphasized or amplified and which stories reporters are put on,” he observed.
Criticism of the media and a close examination of how journalists did and did not cover Biden’s health issues ahead of the debate are worthy of serious consideration, according to Moscato.
“I think more than ever we need those independent reporters who will go against the grain to get the story right or get the story that’s not being told,” he said.
Moscato emphasized that journalists should act independently.
“That’s why I think we’re seeing such a rise of independent journalists and reporters, blogs, podcasts, you name it,” he said. “People are flocking to them.”
Another positive: it’s a good source of debate in the classroom.
“It’s a good, healthy thing to go back and ask. What are my journalistic values, as opposed to what am I feeling pressured to write about on any given day, or what are sources pressuring me to write about?” he asked. “This can be a positive experience from the journalism student’s perspective, because there’s a lot to chew on here.”
This report was first published by The Center Square.
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Yes. Trust is and always has been something that is earned. The people have been lied to about JB by the media. The Deep State has covered for him for decades. The majority of people get their news from only the mainstream. You need to be an independent thinker.
The so-called “mainstream media” has been losing credibility and trust ever since thinking people began to understand that the media is nothing more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the evil in the district of criminals. Now, except for “people” that have been brainwashed by the media, NOBODY that can do math and think for themselves trusts the lamestreem meejuh…
To work on the problem of UFO hysteria, in 1952 Bedell Smith convened a CIA group called the Psychological Strategy Board and gave them the job of putting together recommendations about ‘problems connected with unidentified flying objects’ for the National Security Council – the highest-ranking national security policy makers in the United States. Bedell Smith’s Psychological Strategy Board panel determined that the American public was far too sensitive to ‘hysterical mass behavior’ for the good of the nation. Furthermore, the board said, the public’s susceptibility to UFO belief was a national security threat, one that was increasing by the year. From a psychological standpoint, the public’s gullibility would likely prove ‘harmful to constituted authority’, meaning the central government might not hold. Any forthcoming UFO hoax by Stalin could engender the same kind of pandemonium that followed the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds.”…….”The only way of countering what Bedell Smith was certain was the Russians’ ‘clever hostile propaganda’ was for the CIA to take covert action of its own. The Agency suggested that an educational campaign be put in place, one that would co-opt elements of the American ‘mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles’. The CIA also suggested getting advertising executives, business clubs, and ‘even the Disney Corporation’ [involved] to get the message across.” Chapter 4, “Area 51”, by Annie Jacobsen © 2011
Coincidently, a similar phenomenon of “hysterical mass behavior” occurred with the release of the movie “Men in Black”….., and it happened again when the government played us with “Russia, Russia, Russia”, the WuHan Flu bs and the “balloon” bs….and now the “avian flu”, and that Kalamity didn’t have anything to do with the border….