How Can Journalists and Academics Serve the Public if the Public Doesn’t Trust Them?

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MINOT, N.D. — Academia.

Entertainment, including the various sports leagues.

The news media.

These are America’s dominant cultural institutions.

They’re also not terribly welcoming places when it comes to right-of-center thinking.

More than unwelcoming, they’re often actively hostile.

Earlier this year a high-profile football coach almost lost his job because he wore a conservative T-shirt.

The newsroom of The New York Times has filled with people who aren’t even pretending to be objective anymore.

Do I even need to go into the manifest examples of higher education’s disdain for anyone who might have even a passing thought of voting for a Republican?

Is it any wonder, then, when at least two of these institutions try to convince right-of-center Americans that the COVID-19 pandemic is serious business that must be dealt with by things like masking and social distancing, that those Americans don’t trust them?

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