Do You Trust the Media?

Do you trust the media? 

If you do, and you live in America, you’re among the 29% of Americans who answer that question with a yes. 

There are a lot of reasons why most people don’t.  

Some of it has to do with the explosion of online echo chambers in recent years. Some of it has to do with attacks on press credibility, legitimate or not. 

But some of it has to do with news becoming more of a form of entertainment. 

When it comes to telling any kind of story, the first rule is to hit your audience with the hook. That’s the opening that gets them to read more. Any good novel does it with its first line. A good movie will do it with its first shot. A news article with its headline. 

You might be familiar with the term ‘clickbait’. While it means a piece of text designed to entice a reader to follow a story, the term has become synonymous with deception and sensationalism. 

I bring all of this up to say that it seems like it’s a tactic that’s become more common in mainstream media and is likely at the heart of why so few people trust it now. 

Just look at recent financial stories regarding inflation.

This round of inflation is something we’ve been living with for the past year. For much of that time, the media chose to ignore it and pretend everything was fine. 

When it became impossible to ignore, we instead got sold the story that said inflation was “transitory” — something that would pass in short order. It’s a hope many in the mainstream seem to be clinging to, despite the evidence pointing to the opposite. 

And what about the debt ceiling fight? 

It seems like this is something that pops up every other year or so. The two sides of congress trade blows on keeping the government open. While that happens, we’re flooded with headlines that are some variation of “America is running out of money”, “The country is going broke”, “We’re going to default”. Take your pick. 

It’s the same story every year and it has the same ending. Some deal is made at the 11th hour, elected officials get to pat themselves on the back, and average Americans collectively roll their eyes and go back to what they were doing. 

It makes for a good bit of airtime for the news networks and accomplishes little else besides erode trust. We’ve all seen this movie before, but they insist on showing it to us again. 

And again. 

And again. 

Taking things like this into account, it’s no wonder trust in mainstream media and linked institutions is on the decline. 

And it’s not limited to news and politics. 

Mainstream financial media exists largely to entertain and justify its existence as well. Instead of nuanced, level-headed analysis, you’re more likely to get sensationalized stories meant to sell ads. You’re also more likely to get commentary from insiders who stand to personally benefit from either promoting or bashing a certain company or sector. 

Knowing that, it’s better to reject that narrative. 

We sell research, of course. But that investment research is independent from and not affiliated with mainstream financial media. The content we put out doesn’t have to meet our advertiser's requirements… because we don’t have advertisers. 

Our editors — Nick and Gerardo — have done better than the mainstream by managing their own wealth. 

And that’s the untainted information we give premium members: What our self-made millionaire owners are doing with their capital. 

We think you can do much better by managing your money the same way.  

Here’s how we’re doing that in the energy space, which continues to inflate, right now