“60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl admitted feeling “very dark” about the future of the free press considering President-elect Donald Trump is taking office again.
Stahl took part in an event at the 92NY Center for Culture & Arts with columnist Peggy Noonan in November, where the topic was a reflection on the 2024 presidential election. During their conversation, they lamented falling trust in and attention to the mainstream media.
“The press is fraying,” Stahl said.
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“Yeah, totally,” Noonan replied, though she argued this has been a common attitude over the last 20 years. “Nothing’s going to stop you from being the free press.”
“You really are a sunny person, aren’t you?” Stahl remarked. “I’m very worried about the press, extremely worried about the press.”
Stahl pointed out that legacy media continues to have record low levels of trust “down there with the lawyers,” largely due to people like Trump and Elon Musk insisting “legacy media is dead.”
Stahl added, “But it is kind of, sort of hobbling right now. And I don’t know how it recovers. I’m very dark about it.”
Noonan added other issues contributing to legacy media struggling, like the rise in technology, and was pessimistic about the future.
“We’re talking about something so essential that you don’t want to say, ‘Well, we’ll see.’ Or maybe, ‘The world will end, we’ll see.’ But if America lost freedom of the press and freedom of speech, it would be the beginning of losing everything,” she said.
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In October, a Gallup poll found that for the third year in a row, Americans had a historically low view of the press with only 31% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of faith in the media to report news fairly and accurately.
The same poll found 36% of Americans had no trust in the media with another 33% having “not very much” confidence in the press.
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