Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in To The Point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Doni: According to a recent Gallup poll.

Americans continue to registe record low trust in mass media.

For the third consecutive year, approximately 36% of U.S. adults have no trust at al in the media, with another 33% expressing not much confidence in media reporting.

The lack of quality journalism, a reliance on clickbait to entice readership, biased spin, and a general lack o transparency have all been cited as reasons for this decline, especially among young people and Republicans.

Tom Pounds, founde and publisher of the Toledo Free Press, is here to shar his perspectives on this issue.

I'm Doni Miller, and welcome... To The Point.

Hey, connect with us on our social media pages.

You know that.

You can email me at doni_miller@wgte.org.

I'd love to hear for you from you.

And for this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.orgto the point.

Well, my frien Tom Pounds is here with us today to talk about what I think is probably one of probably the most critical issue facing us today, and we're not talking about it that much, unfortunately.

It's getting drowned out by a lot of other things.

And that issue is the fact that we're losing trust in the media.

You are the founder and the publisher of your own newspaper, the Toledo Free Press.

How does all of this strike you?

Tom: It's, predictable in a way.

I thin since since the Covid outbreak, I think was one of the major turning points, if you look at a lot of things in life changed because of Covid, the way people go to work, the way people do lots of things.

But the information was, was, was scattered at best all over the place.

And the biggest problem, I think is people didn't.

Media outlets did not differentiate between what's myth and what' what's true, what's been proven.

And I think, and, and the fact that some voices were silenced during tha time, social media was confused, didn't know what to what they do.

You know, the Facebook's of the world.

Were had a fact check and police and stuff.

It was a, it was jus a very hard time to go through.

And people just wanted answers and, and, and the prolonged problem of remember, that was it was it, managing the curve as it was the first a couple of weeks this will be over with and then more and more and more information came out and and shutdowns and and people were frustrated and, I think that was a big, big part of it.

Obviously going into political seasons, the same thing, you've got, people to tell telling audiences don't trust the media.

Fake news was a phrase that came u and is still used to this day.

And there is some fake news, but but you don't know what what is what is what?

In our situation, we were talking about this.

This the other day.

If there was another Covid of sorts coming, to us, another pandemic, what would do, what would we do and how we cover it?

And, and the first thing is you have to build trust as as, as you cover it every day.

News.

Doni: You know, how did 36% of Americans think that guys like you and publications, generally across the boar that are that who have the role of informing us that we can't be trusted.

What do we recover from that?

Tom: I think you can, you almost have to.

Unless unless we we we give up and say, okay, now it's it's you mentioned clickbait.

You mentioned, other countries, putting out information that we, we try and believe and algorithms forcing people of you right leaning to get more and more hate videos about that, pumping you up and same thing on, you know, the other the other side of the aisle.

And so it's, it is a, is a you have to hav somebody out there to say, stop.

Here's what the what the facts are.

And what we try to d is try to avoid our own opinion.

Before, when we were in business back in 2015, we had an opinion.

We told people how to vote.

We told people, what we thought we've, this new, incarnation.

We are we're taking the opinion.

Now, you can write in and write your opinion about an issue.

So can anybody else but us.

My my editor, Larry King and I, we stay out of the opinion business, our own opinions and we just try and manage them.

News.

Matter of fact, we have a meeting today or editorial meeting.

We talk about that.

Did we get the other side of things?

And that's, you know, we we covered Presidents Day, for instance.

We had a, we had a story about the, there was a protest down at City Hall.

We covered that.

There was also a party down at the Republican.

Headquarters, and we went out and covered that.

So we try, we try and b make sure that everyon gets their word in on a story.

Doni: Are you old enough t remember Huntley Brinkley?

Yes.

Remember Huntley Brinkley and Walter Kong?

Okay, I can never truncate.

Truncate.

There was amazing trust in the way those folks presented the news.

And if they said it, then it was true.

It was true when you when you look at the numbers that I talked about earlier, 36% having no trust in the media at all and and another 33% saying, you know, sometimes they're good and sometimes they're not.

I would sa that it has an awful lot to do with what you've just mentioned, with people slanting the, the information that's in front of them.

Tom: There's networks built to do just that.

And, and yeah, the Walter Cronkite, I think we mentioned, on the phone the other day that he had never let his opinion known.

Never, ever.

He shed a tear one time with John Kennedy, was shot.

And he did make a comment one time on the air about the Vietnam War.

This is getting out of hand, I think is what he said.

And, and and but besides that, you never knew what his opinion was.

We need to get back to people being trusted in what they do now.

We look at ratings points an and and what's the right person to have in front of the camera.

And you know, it's it's it's becomes it becomes political.

It does become a political.

So we're trying to ge that out of it and take it out and teach that we, we have, we have interns from UT and BG and Owens.

We try and teach those students how to to cover story where you are fair and balanced all the way through.

And that's fro and that's getting interviews, that's getting quotes that's getting their opinions.

But you know, we never say I feel or we feel no one cares how we feel.

How doe how does the interviewee feel?

Doni: Do you think, do you think the lack of trust has to do with the, vehicles that we use now to distribute news?

We're not it's not just TV anymore.

Obviously.

A lot of social media, a lot of people younger than you and I, are driving not only the political direction of the country, but the social direction of the country as well.

And they are relying on social media.

Do you think that has anything to do with this lack of.

Tom: I think I think the, the well, especially in the newspaper business, we've not.

When I first got in this in 1990, we were we were worried about putting URLs in the ads because they go to bigger ads online.

And and we worried about that.

But then we started putting the, the information out for free, and, we never quite figured that out.

Where we were giving it away.

And I was in charge of circulation.

So I'm trying to sell the paper and we're giving it away.

So I worried that we didn't handle it from the beginning well enough.

And so now we're in a situation where we're the country is very readable.

You know, if you just mentioned on social media that, there's a toilet paper shortage, the Costco be sold out and minutes.

Yeah.

That's right.

So we have to be careful how we put out information and again, become a trusted source.

And so I, I worry about networks that are built I mean, you the cable TV, every one of those networks is built to take a, take a side and have, you'll have a conservative person on your, on your benc or you'll have a liberal person on the conservative bench to, to shed some news, but they're mostly leaning the one way or the other.

Doni You know, I think, though, that, at least from m experience as a, as a journalist for a long time, I think that people really prefer that you give it to them straight.

That you not include your own opinion.

People want to make to draw their own conclusions.

And I'm going to brag for a second about about this studio, about this station, the PBS stations, 74% of Americans trust PBS.

And if you watch any of our newscasts, it's because those newscasters provide the information straight as an arrow.

Rarely do you see anybody's opinion.

And I think people are tired of being led.

Tom: I think I think the issue there, and part of that is because, we're paying for PBS we we may have written a check or we watched as a kid growing up, there was a there's a lon lasting I mean, programs change.

Doni: Do you think people know that, though time?

Do people really realize that they're paying for it?

Do you think that really they.

Tom: Know it's they know it's free.

They're not paying for it unless they write a donation.

It's been there for a long time, hasn't changed a ton.

They don't turn over.

And, you know, the CBS keeps changing.

Changing, changing the way they now look at two guys doing the news had one guy.

It's all about the ratings and how it how it works.

PBS has been a little bi more consistent over the years.

I've just in my own opinion on that.

But, you know, and, you know, just trusting the news, it's the most trusted.

But it's, it's not 80%, you know, it's not, you know, it's not, a high number.

It.

Well, I guess it's, what, 70?

So what was.

Doni: It, 74.

Tom: 74 So it's it's getting up there.

What's what's the second place?

I mean.

Doni: Yeah.

Tom: It's down so and, well, and you look at most of these people are pai and have and have sponsors and, and and they're, they're paid to get their opinions, Doni: You know, bu I think what we're missing here is having people recognize that a free press is fundamental to this democracy.

It's absolutely fundamental to this democracy, not just a free press, but a transparent and press and honest press.

How how do we get that to people?

How do we make them understand that?

You know what?

And I'm going to ask you to hold that thought.

All right?

We're going to go away for just just a moment, but stay with me, okay?

All righty.

We'll be right back.

Doni: Connect with us on our social media pages.

Please do that and please email me at doni_miller@wgte.org, for this episod and any other, additional extras that you might be interested in, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

We are talking with Tom Pounds.

Mr.

Pounds is the founder and publisher of the Toledo Free Press, and we are talking about the amazing lack of trust that people had in the media and why that happened, and ho we can fix it if we can fix it.

You were saying.

Tom: Well, we're certainly going to try and fix it.

You know, the reason we and, are we have one opinion, our opinion is that we like Toledo and, we look at things that are glass half full.

If your dog poops on my lawn, I'll let you know about it.

But I want to.

I want your house to appreciate it.

Once you have good jobs, I want I want you to go to good schools.

So we're rooting for the city.

That's the only opinion we have.

Other things.

We try to be as balanced as we can.

We have to earn trust.

You can't just be given trust.

And, I think over our first run and our second run, no one's.

Although my editor told me the other day some things, things that we're a right leaning newspaper.

And I said, I don't even kno how they can come up with that.

If you look at our paper lately, it's been it's been very, very, bland as far as opinions go.

We just report the news and.

Doni: Isn't that isn't that really a, an example of exactl what we're talking about today?

Tom: But we're not leaning left enough for them, so we must be right.

And that's that's the thing.

And we don't come out and say what our opinion is, and we should be voting for this person, or we should be, voting for that issue.

And that's, that's the problem.

If you are in the middle, people blame me either way, back on them.

Back in the old days when we did have an opinion, I, I would endorse one candidate, my editor would endorse another one.

But we would we would always, you know, we'd work out.

We'll work well together.

We can have our own littl battles and me and my own editor now we, we get in debates about politics and, and, but we don't let that bleed under the pages of the paper.

Doni: So the erosion of this trust, though, in the media is having, an enormous impact on not only the morale of the country, the ability of the country to unify, as well as for the country t understand its own core values.

All of those things, I think, happen as a result of not being able to trust the media.

It's how much responsibility do papers like yours and other papers, and other vehicles, social media, media vehicles, for instance, how much responsibility do you have in trying to pull all of those things together and have people understand how important it is that, that they begin to trust media again, or at least tell you guys how to make it a and, a vehicle that they can trust.

Tom: The thing is that we get mixed in now that we're an online, online newspaper, we're mixed in with Instagram, Facebook, all the other, other outlets that are not media outlets.

Just even the rules, the way things are governed, the, the the way the protections that, that, that Facebook has versus protections I have, I can get sued.

I can get sued for putting I can tell you, I, I put i that little, little magazines, for a long time and the liability insurance for that was like $300 a year.

It's like 15 grand for a newspaper because you will be sued.

They know you will be sued, but the other ones aren't.

And so, and so we're we're being measured against, people that can tell lies if they want to.

Algorithms can set things up the way they want.

We have to come out and do it the right way all the time.

Or we were sued or we are.

We were out of business, one of the two.

So it's hard to get that, to mix that, there's a big mix of companies.

We have to be a stand out.

There's, there's very little local, journalism going on.

You know, the, the big paper is a lot smaller now.

It's, it's, you know, bac when I was there was this thick.

It's this thic that funds a lot of journalism.

Now, when you do this, the what are you funding and how are you doing it?

We're doing it through a nonprofit way.

We're raising money to do it.

We're finding people that can support us that way.

Because it seems to me that, we're not beholden to anybody that way.

You know, you can have one huge investor, and they could push the way you where you think, the way you, you know, be an influence on how you do things with us.

It's it's it's a whole bunch of people.

It's the citizens.

So how do you.

Doni: How do you know what your readers want from you?

Tom: The from back in the day, what you do, you look a studies, you look at research.

But what what's missing?

I think it was telling you to break that.

I had a friend in when I was at San Jose Mercury News and left there and went to went to the, went to Microsoft to be their editor.

He came back six months later saying the internet doesn't have a courthouse.

And that was very telling that you cover news from the courthouse out, in the newspaper business we we don't have we don't cover sports, for instance.

We'll do sports figures.

We do more.

We do more.

Deep dive on stories.

I, I liken it to, some news is a skipping a stone on a on a pond.

We dive into the pon and find out more information.

So to me, that's how you do it.

It's how and what topics we are concentrating on on on city government, holding them accountable, city and county government.

And we look at we look at, economic development news, what's happening, what's good things happening here, what's being built what permits are being pulled.

So we're trying to do that.

Arts and entertainment.

We concentrate on on the big ones that come to town like, like, like our museum is a great museum.

We need to publicize that more.

Doni: So you don't see necessarily your role, as a publisher to make people feel comfortable that what they are seeing in your publication is, Tom: Accurate or you do we do we do we do see that as a role.

We do see that we want to make sure that, that we, we're covering, you know, and crossing our T's and dotting our eyes and make sure we've got we don't do we don't do, and, sources close to say no, what's his name is Donny.

How do you spell it?

Spell it correctly and and get quotes from those people and tell them what is happening.

So we want to be trusted.

We want to make sure we're trusted.

So we we bank on it.

We we have editorial meetings.

We have one later today that that we'll talk about stories and, and did we get that side, did you talk to this one?

Did you talk to that?

Oh I didn't well, you might want to ask them.

It's going to affect them as well.

So it's we try to bring both sides.

I don't think anyone can ever tell us.

When we were, for 10 to 10 years we were the best weekly in Ohio.

Six of those ten years, we were second place for the other four times.

People did trust us because we did.

We did produce quality, quality journalism.

That's what we want to do now.

And that's what we we that's why we have the intern program to spread that, to let that go to a next generation.

We want people coming out of school saying, I think go to journalism is a is a is an honorable and honorable role in my life.

So and we've got young reporters and and they're great and they, they, they, they there's a there's an energy to journalism that people miss when you're just doing, you know, I was in cable TV for a number of years.

You know, you turn the dish a quarter of an inch and and you fix your problem here.

You got to go out and dig up the news and find out what's going on and hold sources accountable.

The hold government accountable won't see.

Doni: And that's the point.

How do you do that?

How do you hold those sources accountable?

How do you keep the bias out of their comments?

How do you keep the sway out of their comments?

I you know, this is a this is a sort of, depressing point of view to have, but it's my point of view.

I'm not sure tha unless there are more stories, more unless the news is present in more often, the way, the way shows like the PBS NewsHour presents it, I'm not sure that we're going to be able to change this.

And I think the impact is going to be one of such weight and such magnitude to our own liberty and our own democracy, that we won't see it coming.

Tom: Well, there's th the thing called I now and and I and we have to be carefu that the articles aren't written via AI.

There's no there's some checkers and stuff, but, you know, there's those those technologies change every day.

And, now it's up to us to make sure that we can be trusted.

You know, like I said, you don' want to turn into a news desert, which is you're left with nothing but social media to run the day you've got, especially local news.

Local news is the is th is the beginning of everything.

Just like just like voting fo city council people and school board people and holding those people accountable, from a grassroots, way of doing things.

That's what we have to do.

And so if you can build trust here, you can build it up.

But if we just go away, if there's no news, no nothing, no one's covering the mayor's office or the council or the city council or the commissioners and, you know, and just just some, some, social media platforms going on doing it, that's not enough.

And digging into the budgets and digging into the freedom of information acts and digging into memos that they're sent here and there, that's what we have to do.

Yeah, that's what we're concentrating on.

Doni: Yeah, I should know this, but I don't is there a National Association of publishers or.

Tom: There's a there's now a new we're it's institute.

Institute for nonprofi news is what I'm a member of now nonprofit newspapers are all over the country.

The Salt Lake City Tribune is no nonprofit.

Philadelphia News and Inquirer now, and nonprofits.

Doni The Inquirer.

Tom: The Inquirer.

But because because the funding model is broken.

Doni: And that's the for sure.

Tom: People have to pay for who's paying for information.

Doni: That's exactly right.

Tom: Never had to.

So, in the market, the main market is 25 to 36.

You want those people?

They're not buying that.

They're like a 32 year old mother of two walking into a Kroger asking for, where's the newspaper?

Not many anymore.

I get them on my phone.

Yeah, don't need them.

Doni: Are you guys talking about this issue of lack of trust?

Tom: Yes.

Yes we do, we do.

Every day is that how do we make sure that all people trust us, not just the Republicans or the Democrats?

It's all people trusting it.

And, Doni: Any wonderful ideas coming out of your group?

Tom: Well, it's jus covering the news the right way.

And make sure you make sure w put up both or all viewpoints.

Not both.

Hell, both.

They're not both right all the time.

There's a third side mode.

Most of the time there's another.

There's another side to it.

But yeah, our group, our goal is to build trust.

And we've only been doing i for, you know, six months now.

So, give us a chance to build into it.

But, we're we're trying to become the trusted news outlet in town here.

Doni: Okay, we have one minute.

Where do you think this whole issue is headed?

Do you think the numbe the numbers have been declining for the past three years?

They're they're getting nothing but worse.

Where do you think we're headed?

Tom: Well, I think you still have some more.

Sunshine.

You stil have some more shake out to go.

I mean, the newspaper industry itself is is needs to change the way they do things.

Online free printing it is no one's printing their own paper anymore.

They're they're all subbin somebody out to somebody else.

So it's it comes down t getting the information right.

I think people will trust them.

No matter how you get it, how them.

It's on television or it's, through, through your phone, or even if you get a newspaper at your house, you have to be able to trust those people.

And, you know, and over time you got to you got to earn it.

And.

Yeah.

And right now, I think you get some more fall out.

You're going to lose other people.

Other outlets will go away.

And yeah, someone like me hopefully will replace the replace that.

Doni: This is a huge conversation going in over an hour, hours and hours and hours.

So you'll have to come back and look at this talk with us and for you.

Thank you so much for spending part of your day with us, and we'll see you next time.

Until the point.

Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in To The Point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

To The Point is supporte in part by American Rescue Plan Act fund allocated by the City of Toledo and the Lucas County Commissioners and administered by the Arts Commission.

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Thank you.