Joe Kahn: Trust in US media could take decades to recover
As new Gallup polling shows that Americans' trust in news is in rapid decline, it could take as long as '40 or 50 years' for the US media industry to rebuild that faith, The New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn told Semafor's Ben Smith in an interview Thursday.
Among the strategies to do that that Kahn cited was to allow news audiences to feel more connected to reporters, he said. The 'conversational' style of the Times' flagship podcast, The Daily, is aimed at providing an opportunity to break down the fourth wall that has traditionally stopped readers from seeing inside the journalistic process, Kahn said.
'Having individual beat reporters speak to you directly as readers, viewers, explaining to them what they're working on and how they're working on it…getting to know the bylines,' Kahn said, 'Those are all part of trust.'
In turn, US media also needs to be more prepared to defend itself against critics, he said: 'I think the old philosophy of letting the story [or] the journalism speak for itself, [or that] we don't have to defend our people or our institution when it comes under attack is not right.'
In an unstable and declining news economy, The New York Times has been a rare bright spot. The paper announced earlier this year that it had garnered 11.4 million paid subscribers, and its audience was expanding at a steady rate.
While the Times has both grown and diversified its digital business in recent years, it has also tried to return to some of its more traditional editorial roots. In a slight departure from other Times editors, Kahn has often been more willing to push back against what he has viewed as aggressive pressure from the left and from younger, more ideological staffers at the paper itself.
In an interview with Semafor last year, Kahn said he saw his mission as not letting the paper become a 'safe space' for sanitized, academic thought often aligned with the left. While Kahn has repeatedly made similar comments to staff in editorial meetings, some employees grumbled about what they perceived as a patronizing attitude about the sensitivities of younger journalists.
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