The media we consume — and how we consume it — can intensify division

The American public's shared reality, once anchored by a few trusted broadcast networks like CBS, NBC, and ABC in the 1960s and 70s, has fractured under the weight of today’s hyper-polarized, profit-driven media ecosystem. Back then, Walter Cronkite’s nightly broadcasts reached 70 million Americans, creating a common factual foundation—despite the war’s moral ambiguity and the Pentagon’s misleading body counts. Now, trust in media has plummeted to just 28%, with only 8% of Republicans expressing confidence in news outlets. The shift isn’t just about bias—it’s about structure: the collapse of mass-market neutrality, the rise of algorithmic echo chambers, and the monetization of outrage. As Joanna Dunaway and Alexandros Estradio explain, today’s media doesn’t just reflect division—it actively fuels it. Social platforms reward anger, not accuracy; influencers optimize for rage bait; and a tiny fraction of users generate most of the content, shaping public discourse without accountability. The result? A society where people don’t just disagree on policies—they inhabit entirely different realities. Yet, there’s a flicker of hope: growing public skepticism toward social media, a surge in demand for trusted local and nonprofit news, and early efforts to design media literacy into entertainment itself. The path forward isn’t regulation alone—it’s personal agency: curating your own news diet, verifying across sources, and reclaiming attention from the attention economy.