On Wednesday Oct. 23, Oswego State hosted the 15th annual Dr. Lewis B. O’Donnell Media Summit, on the topic of public trust in the media, in the Waterman Theatre in Tyler Hall.

The media summit is a yearly panel featuring professionals and experts in the media field discussing a timely topic in contemporary media. To commemorate 15 years of the media summit, this year’s topic revisited the first summit’s topic of public trust in the media.

“For 15 years, we’ve welcomed leading professionals to campus to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing the media today,” Scott Furlong, provost for Oswego State, said at the event. “Today, that tradition continues with a nod to the past. 15 years ago, a distinguished panel of experts was asked the following question, ‘How can the news media recover public trust?’ 15 years later, we find ourselves still asking that very question.”

The panel was moderated by Kendis Gibson, a 1994 Oswego State graduate and currently a weekend anchor for MSNBC. Other expert panelists included Cristina Domingues, a professional broadcast journalist and anchor of “Your Morning Rochester” for Spectrum News, Doug Schneider, an experienced reporter for USA Today Network out of Wisconsin, Jennifer Williams, senior foreign editor for the online news publication Vox and Sharon Friedlander Newman, a long-time broadcast journalist and 1979 Oswego State graduate who is currently a senior producer on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams.”

The panel began with a clip from 2005 of a C-SPAN segment on the first media summit.

“Television, radio, iPods, cell phones, you name it, Americans last year spent more time using media devices than any other activity while they were awake,” Oswego State President Deborah Stanley said in the clip from 2005. “Much of this is diversion, entertainment, but there is a segment of what we call the media that has always defined us as Americans and defined our nation as a democracy: journalism.”

The clip interspersed segments of statements from the 2005 panel experts with more recent news segments from commentators and experts describing the shifts in the media landscape over the years. Most comments described those changes as detrimental to the impact of news journalism such as a focus on profit, erosion of ethics and social media.

“I think you can trust the media. I think what we’ve talked about with students this morning, a lot, is the amount of information that you have access to. So, I think it was interesting to watch back and say, ‘yeah, people would start their day with their one local newspaper,” Domingues said. “That’s not what you have today. You have so many different ways and so many different places where you can get the news.”

Domingues also said some of the responsibility is on the readers and viewers of media to ensure the news they trust is from a reliable source because “not everything out there is done by somebody who is a trained journalist, has experience, who has their sources.”

“I think the answer is: trust the people who’ve earned your trust,” Schneider said. “Trust the people who continually get it right, who continually deliver the information that’s important to you, that’s valuable to you. Trust the people who’ve been doing it for a while and have earned that trust.”

Newman addressed one of the comments from the introductory clip, which said that journalists fabricated sources and facts.

“In real journalism, that doesn’t happen. I have been in this business [for 40 years], if I ever knew of any case where somebody made up a fact or made up a source, they’re out,” Newman said. “So, to have people in influential positions trying to convince you that there’s ‘that’ out there, it isn’t happening in legitimate news sources.”

According to Newman, the self-policing in the news industry is a strength. 

“Now, there are a whole lot of different factors that we deal with all the time, people questioning. But I like to think that questioning, and that question of trust, makes us better,” Newman said. “We’re under so much more scrutiny right now, we’re even more careful than we normally are.”

Gibson turned the conversation from established “legacy outlets” like the Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, MSNBC and local newspapers like the Palladium-Times to social media and web publications.

“You have a lot of legacy outlets that have been out there over the years, but since the first summit back in 2005, Facebook was only one year old, by the way, Twitter wasn’t even born yet, it came around in 2006. Snapchat came along six years later, where most of y’all get your news from,” Gibson said, referring to the students in the audience. “And Vox, 2011. The question is, how do you know? Not necessarily approaching at Jennifer [Williams] with Vox itself, but with all these brand-new outlets that are coming on and giving people information and sources, how can you necessarily trust that they have this vetting process?”

William’s replied with an example from her own experiences at Vox.

“For a new digital media startup, we don’t have a lot of the baggage that is left-over from legacy media outlets but by the same token, we also don’t have the built-in trust. We don’t have the decades of reporting you can turn to, so we have to establish ourselves very quickly,” Williams said. “What’s scary is that even one small slip-up, and if there are more than one it compounds that, really can do serious damage to a new media company in a way that a legacy publication or news outlet can usually weather that storm a little better.”

The panelists agreed that journalists take the trust placed in the profession very seriously and understand the responsibility of earning that trust.

“Somebody who can’t get it right doesn’t do it for very long, it’s very simple,” Schneider said. “You build your reputation and your reputation is the currency of the realm.”

The panel took student questions at the end of the event. Students asked questions such as how to bridge generational gaps in how Americans young and old understand the media landscape, how a 24-hour news cycle compares to a daily news cycle and how the media relationship with the political climate has changed. One question from a student asked about the future of journalism and whether it was on the next generation of journalists to restore trust in the media.

“If you don’t go into journalism, somebody else’s voice will fill that. If you feel like you have something to say, I would rather have your voice than someone else,” Williams said. “You have an individual, unique life perspective just like everyone else and somebody else is going to be talking, would you rather have them telling the story or would you rather have you telling the story?”

Newman responded to the concern about new journalists bearing the burden of a mistrustful public.

“The question is how do I rebuild the trust? That’s not all on you, that’s on all of us and every day when we’re attacked, you just double down on your efforts. We’re working on that, it’s not all on you.”

The first media summit was dedicated to former Oswego State faculty member Lewis O’Donnell by alumni Louis Borrelli and Al Roker, who have become successful leaders in the field of broadcast journalists since their time at Oswego State. The media summit was made possible by a committee of students and communication studies assistant professor Brian Moritz, as well as the support of various other Oswego State departments.

segments from commentators and experts describing the shifts in the media landscape over the years. Most comments described those changes as detrimental to the impact of news journalism such as a focus on profit, erosion of ethics and social media.

“I think you can trust the media. I think what we’ve talked about with students this morning, a lot, is the amount of information that you have access to. So, I think it was interesting to watch back and say, ‘yeah, people would start their day with their one local newspaper,’” Domingues said. “That’s not what you have today. You have so many different ways and so many different places where you can get the news.”

Domingues also said some of the responsibility is on the readers and viewers of media to ensure the news they trust is from a reliable source because “not everything out there is done by somebody who is a trained journalist, has experience, who has their sources.”

“I think the answer is: trust the people who’ve earned your trust,” Schneider said. “Trust the people who continually get it right, who continually deliver the information that’s important to you, that’s valuable to you. Trust the people who’ve been doing it for a while and have earned that trust.”

Newman addressed one of the comments from the introductory clip, which said that journalists fabricated sources and facts.

“In real journalism, that doesn’t happen. I have been in this business [for 40 years], if I ever knew of any case where somebody made up a fact or made up a source, they’re out,” Newman said. “So, to have people in influential positions trying to convince you that there’s ‘that’ out there, it isn’t happening in legitimate news sources.”

According to Newman, the self-policing in the news industry is a strength. 

“Now, there are a whole lot of different factors that we deal with all the time, people questioning. But I like to think that questioning, and that question of trust, makes us better,” Newman said. “We’re under so much more scrutiny right now, we’re even more careful than we normally are.”

Gibson turned the conversation from established “legacy outlets” like the Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, MSNBC and local newspapers like the Palladium-Times to social media and web publications.

“You have a lot of legacy outlets that have been out there over the years, but since the first summit back in 2005, Facebook was only one year old, by the way, Twitter wasn’t even born yet, it came around in 2006. Snapchat came along six years later, where most of y’all get your news from,” Gibson said, referring to the students in the audience.

 “And Vox, 2011. The question is, how do you know? Not necessarily approaching at Jennifer [Williams] with Vox itself, but with all these brand-new outlets that are coming on and giving people information and sources, how can you necessarily trust that they have this vetting process?”

William’s replied with an example from her own experiences at Vox.

“For a new digital media startup, we don’t have a lot of the baggage that is left-over from legacy media outlets but by the same token, we also don’t have the built-in trust. We don’t have the decades of reporting you can turn to, so we have to establish ourselves very quickly,” Williams said. “What’s scary is that even one small slip-up, and if there are more than one it compounds that, really can do serious damage to a new media company in a way that a legacy publication or news outlet can usually weather that storm a little better.”

The panelists agreed that journalists take the trust placed in the profession very seriously and understand the responsibility of earning that trust.

“Somebody who can’t get it right doesn’t do it for very long, it’s very simple,” Schneider said. “You build your reputation and your reputation is the currency of the realm.”

The panel took student questions at the end of the event. Students asked questions such as how to bridge generational gaps in how Americans young and old understand the media landscape, how a 24-hour news cycle compares to a daily news cycle and how the media relationship with the political climate has changed. One question from a student asked about the future of journalism and whether it was on the next generation of journalists to restore trust in the media.

“If you don’t go into journalism, somebody else’s voice will fill that. If you feel like you have something to say, I would rather have your voice than someone else,” Williams said. “You have an individual, unique life perspective just like everyone else and somebody else is going to be talking, would you rather have them telling the story or would you rather have you telling the story?”

Newman responded to the concern about new journalists bearing the burden of a mistrustful public.

“The question is how do I rebuild the trust? That’s not all on you, that’s on all of us and every day when we’re attacked, you just double down on your efforts. We’re working on that, it’s not all on you.”

The first media summit was dedicated to former Oswego State faculty member Lewis O’Donnell by alumni Louis Borrelli and Al Roker, who have become successful leaders in the field of broadcast journalists since their time at Oswego State. 

The media summit was made possible by a committee of students and communication studies assistant professor Brian Moritz, as well as the support of various other Oswego State departments.