Part II. How Distrust Spreads and Takes Root (Episodes 6-10)

⑥ The Media: Mediators Who Failed to Explain

⑦ Politics: The Politics of Unchosen Words

⑧ Economy: Numbers Increased, But Trust Disappeared

⑨ Education: The Collapse of a System Meant to Foster Judgment

⑩ Labor: Systems That Became Risks Rather Than Protections

Media distrust is often explained as a "crisis of trust." Terms like bias, sensationalism, and false reporting are cited as causes.

However, this explanation does not fully capture today's phenomenon.

The media distrust we face today is less a loss of trust and more a loss of function.

The core function of the media is not persuasion. Nor is it to make judgments for the public. It is the role of a mediator: to organize facts amidst differing claims and interests, to clarify the boundaries of interpretation, and to record the basis for judgment.

When this function weakens, the media loses its role before it loses trust.

The problem is not a lack of facts.

Rather, facts abound. Breaking news, data, quotes, and analyses pour in in real-time. However, this information is not presented in a form that readers can use for judgment.

Facts, interpretations, and opinions are mixed within a single paragraph, making it unclear what has been confirmed and what is an evaluation.

This mixed structure is more a product of the environment than a result of intentional manipulation.

In the face of speed competition, click pressure, and platform distribution structures, the media has prioritized delivery over explanation and reaction over record-keeping.

As a result, the media has shifted from leaving grounds for judgment to providing stimuli that trigger judgment.

This change is fatal in a society of confirmation bias.

Readers selectively choose information that confirms their pre-existing perceptions. When the media presents interpretations from different camps side-by-side rather than structuring facts, readers more easily pick the interpretation favorable to themselves.

In this scenario, the media becomes not a mediator but a warehouse of confirmation material.

The media's responsibility is also diluted in this process.

The statement "we just reported the facts" may be technically true. However, which facts were chosen and what context was omitted are not recorded.

If the path to judgment is not left behind, the media enters a structure where it is difficult to be held accountable for explanations.

As media distrust deepens, readers do not so much distrust the media as they utilize it.

They consume it not to obtain information, but to justify their own judgments. At this point, the media devolves from the center of the public sphere to a peripheral device that reinforces individual convictions.

Crucially, none of these changes stem from malice on the part of the media.

The media has adapted to the changing environment. However, the direction of that adaptation has been the weakening of its mediating function.

The language of persuasion has increased, but the language of record-keeping has decreased.

In a society of distrust, the role of the media must be redefined.

Restoring function is more important than declaring a recovery of trust.

It is about separating what is fact, what is interpretation, and what is still uncertain, and then structuring and leaving behind the material for judgment.

The more the media attempts to make judgments for the public, the greater the distrust becomes.

Conversely, when the media returns the judgment to the readers and leaves behind records that enable that judgment, it can return to its position as a mediator.

Media distrust is not a loss of trust, but a loss of function.

Media that fails to restore its mediating function cannot assist in judgment.

The next installment (⑦ Politics: The Politics of Unchosen Words) will move beyond the media to examine how the politics of unchosen words has led to the erosion of accountability.