Can Media Regain Public Trust?

Starting off in issue eight, the author described how time changed so much and came up with new developments in the media such as cable and the internet to the point where journalism isn't always credited beacuse of things like the lack of substantive coverage. Michael Schudson calls the press, "unlovable" because he believes that the press doesn't care sometimes about what they are reporting and that is what causes the public to "unlove" the medias behaviors. I completely agree with Schudson when he pointed out that the "media is focusing on events rather than trends and structures, focuses on conflic right when it happends, shows disrespect towards politics and politicians, and how they alienate the communities." I agree with Schudson because since the media is portrayed like this no one would really "love" these journalists. Schudson mentioned that journalist know how to identify a story and usually what they do is find an "event-centered story" where their adrenalin is pumping, such as an event of a deranged pilot, hurricanes, tragedy, etc. In relation to journalist searching for event-centered stories, conflict was used as a topic by Schudson and how like certain events, it can embarass the powerful. Supporting the idea that the media cannot regain public trust, John Hockenberry brought up an idea that I thought was very interesting and is such a great example of how the public cannot trust the media anymore. The example that Hockenberry used was the idea of "spammers" and how they caught a person who was trying to spam a Dallas housewife through e-mails and had him apologize on camera. Although I agree with this idea of how the media is getting very doubtful to communities because of this "trust" issue, but overall I would have to agree with Schudson that the media can regain public trust. In conclusion, Schudson mentioned that the journalist who he admires are the ones who "get behind and beneath events, eliminate trends, structures, moods and not just conflicts, believe in the virtues and values of pilitical life and hopes it inspires, and feel connected and commited to their communities-global, national, and local." This statement by Schudson persuaded me to believe that although the public cannot always trust the media, there are going to be some "good-hearted" journalist out there that love writing substative and truthful reports. On the other hand there will always be people in the media such as spammers who are making it difficult for the public to trust them, but in the long-run its all up to the public to chose what kind of media they want to engage in; will the read "fake" and "untruthfull" news like The Onion Newspaper, or will the public choose to educate themselves using "truthfull" and "newsworthy" resources, such as C-Span or NPR?