https://medium.com/media/21f071f3fbdb91ab1f2cf42448b2e15b/href
This Substack Live session, hosted by Emma Lembke with Steven Rosenbaum and Gen Z board member Matthew Stevens, features AP media correspondent David Bauder discussing his article on teens’ distrust of the news. Based on a News Literacy Project survey, he notes that 84 percent of teens used negative words like “biased,” “fake,” or “boring” to describe today’s news media.
Bauder links this distrust to several forces: social media’s tendency to simplify and sensationalize complex stories, political attacks that brand mainstream outlets as “fake news,” the decline of traditional news habits at home, and a basic lack of understanding about what journalists do, including fact-checking and corrections. He also points to the absence of positive cultural portrayals of journalists.
Matthew adds a Gen Z view: many young people mainly dislike media they disagree with, and algorithms deepen echo chambers. News now often reaches them through short social clips, podcasts, and “citizen journalism,” while school media literacy programs are far too shallow for a world of viral reposts and AI deepfakes. The group briefly touches on solutions like stronger media literacy and shared trust standards for news outlets.
