Why Nobody Trusts the News: Isaac Saul

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
But there will be no losers. Both sides will win.
Thank you very much, Mr. Kukushkin, Mr. Popov, ladies and gentlemen, Spasi Bo. And now, I think I said it right, back to Walter Cronkite.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:18)
Woody Allen, Woody Allen, good gracious, Woody Brown at Disneyland. Well, it is a fantasy world we live in today. Could be Woody Allen or Woody Brown.
At Disneyland, talking to some of those Russian track stars. Been competing out there. It's 40 minutes before the landing on the moon, and it is now 9 minutes before we should begin to hear from the command module coming around on this pass, the 14th revolution of the moon. With some confirmation, we hope that the lunar module has begun to drop into the orbit, which will take it down to the moon's surface. CBS News Color coverage of the epic journey of Apollo 11 will continue in a moment.

**Andrew Heaton** (1:08)
Hello, and welcome to The Political Orphanage, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers. I'm your host, Andrew Heaton, the Walter Cronkite of zoning reform. Last year, when Pew Research asked Americans if they trusted national media, 56% reported having some or a lot of trust, which is to say 46% had no trust in national media. 56% trust is still better than Congress, but I don't think I would get on an airplane if I thought that it had less than a 99% chance the pilot would land us safely.
What accounts for that plummeting trust? I can think of three reasons. The first is, journalism has failed and people trust it less as a result. Trust has simply declined with quality. If journalists were more like the great Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow, trust would still be teeteringly high.
Imagine the salad is just not as good as it used to be at our favorite restaurant, because the chef just isn't as good. The new chef, that guy Pierre, he is lazy and he is cheap. He doesn't assess quality, he skimps on produce, he's replaced the romaine lettuce with iceberg lettuce, which is basically just crunchy water. That's the first explanation. A second explanation is that the quality of journalists has not declined. That is to say that journalists are no better or worse than they were during the Cronkite era, but that the circumstances, they're operating in, have. The chef is the same. Pierre is actually Pierre Jr. Pierre Sr. was the old chef. He's just as good. He learned from his dad. He is just as driven, proud, crazy, and likely to start his own travel cooking show as he's ever been. The salad is worse. That's true. But for circumstances beyond his control, a warlord has firebombed all the romaine lettuce plantations. So the chef has been forced to replace it with spring mix, which is dinky and not as good. But it's circumstantial. It doesn't represent a personal feeling. And then I see a third option as well.
We changed.
Perhaps there was no golden age of journalism. Reporters and gatekeepers are the same quality, producing the same stuff. But the public is now aware of their foibles and flaws in a way that we weren't in more innocent bygone eras. It's not that they've changed. It's that we've wised up.
Alternately, maybe we say we want objective, neutral, hard-hitting journalism. But what we really want is partisan, sensational entertainment.
In this scenario, in our third scenario, we're at the same restaurant, lamenting how terrible the once stupendous Caesar salad has now become. Wasn't it better when you and I were in high school? I remember the salad being so much better. But in all actuality, it's the same as it's always been. It's just that we've realized iceberg lettuce is the stupidest form of lettuce. It's basically an expensive way to transport water. We didn't know that back when we were in high school. Now we know better. And once that same restaurant started offering breakfast tacos, it turns out we never really wanted a salad at all. It's just the only thing we could get. So which is it? Has journalism declined in quality? Has the market journalism operates and changed? Or have we? Why trust in media has plummeted and how to get it back? Today, right here on The Political Orphanage.
My guest today is Isaac Saul. He is the founder and executive editor of Tangle News, an independent politics newsletter that presents multiple perspectives on the day's biggest stories before offering his own analysis. A former political reporter, he's become one of the leading voices arguing that journalism can rebuild public trust by prioritizing transparency, intellectual honesty, and a fair hearing for competing viewpoints. I will add that I've had several listeners ask me to bring him on over the last two or three years, and I think we are kindred spirits in both being in media and caring about nuance and not being dirtbags. So fellow not dirtbag Isaac, pleasure to meet you.