Brought to you by: CivicLex, New Leaders Council Kentucky, & Plantory
Statistics Used in the Session:
- Media is one of the least trusted institutions in the United States: only 24% of US citizens report trusting a newspaper, and only 22 percent report trusting television news. Both have declined over 50% in trustworthiness since the late 20th Century.
- The Newspaper industry is cratering: total overall circulation of newspapers (both daily and non-daily) has decreased by 50 Million Americans since 2004 - from 122 Million to 73 Million.
- 58% of Americans say it is harder to be informed due to the plethora of information and news sources available.
- Less than half of Americans, 44%, say they can think of a news source that reports the news objectively.
- Only 27% of Americans say they are “very confident” that they can tell when a news source is reporting factual news versus commentary or opinion.”
Questions Asked in the Session:
- How does local media shape our sense of belonging in Lexington?
- What voices are represented in our local media landscape?
- What voices are not represented in our local media landscape? Why?
- What do recent buyouts and layoffs at the Lexington Herald-Leader mean for how information is gathered and distributed in Lexington?
- How can we build media systems that are sustainable and representative of our entire community?
Resources & Sources:
Notes:
When your'e talking about media, news and what's going on in a community it's very important to have access to that in your language.
What does belonging in media mean to you? Hearing your stories. Historical context.
Media and Spanish in Lexington. 3 papers in Spanish- they cover news from a lot of other countries, but not a lot of local news. A lot of immigrants and refugees from other countries know more about the countries that they're from. English speaking media is not representative either, is not covering relevant stories to those populations.