Members of the media are easy targets for politicians who are frustrated by their own shortcomings and upset that someone is noticing. After all, the only institution people have less confidence in than the media is Congress.
However, might there be some truth to accusations that negative news stories are unfair and not an accurate representation of reality.
That is a question that we in the news media should ask ourselves when faced with such accusations.
Governor Patrick Morrisey insisted in a social media post that the Charleston Gazette-Mail inaccurately represented his administration’s energy policy and its bid to bring a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus to West Virginia. The Gazette-Mail article accurately described the memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Energy and the stipulation that West Virginia would store and process nuclear waste, a key priority for consideration in the program.
The strategy to blame the news media uses the fact that trust in news media overall has been steadily declining over the last three decades.
In a survey published by Gallup on Sept. 29, 66 percent of Americans said they have “not very much” confidence or “no confidence at all” in the media. Believe it or not, that’s an improvement from 2025, when just 28 percent of Americans responded that they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media.
The data demonstrate why blaming news media is so easy. People are already predisposed to believe reporting is lopsided and skeptical that they are getting the whole story. At the national level, that very well could be the case. However, people had a much more favorable view of their local news media.
According to an October 2025 Pew Research survey, the share of Americans who have at least some trust in information that comes from local news organizations was 70 percent.
While it is natural and justified to be defensive when our integrity is called into question, as it was last week, the moment provides an opportunity to examine our work to ensure that we are indeed providing fair coverage.
Unfortunately, page views for news stories are often measured in seconds, not minutes, making it difficult to explain complex and nuanced stories in an effective and succinct way. The headline and the first few sentences may be all that the majority of the audience reads of a 2,000-word article.
Could a clever lede be misconstrued? Does a turn of phrase carry a misleading connotation? Have I allowed personal feelings to seep into the tone of the story?
Those are just a few of the questions I ask myself when faced with accusations of biased reporting or unfair commentary.
Media are not beholden to the people, administrations, or teams that we cover. We have a responsibility to our audience to ensure that stories are presented in an accurate and fair manner.
It is a healthy exercise, when accused of doing otherwise, to take a step back and make certain that those lobbing the allegations are really upset with their own shortcomings and not ours.