How news media literacy affects media trust

Abstract

The American public’s distrust of media has been a growing issue, spurred on by events such as the 2016 presidential election and COVID-19. News media literacy education is one solution that has been introduced to combat this issue, but research on how news media literacy affects how the public perceives journalists and news organizations themselves is slim. I provide that research by using an anonymous survey to determine how news media literate college students feel about four specific news organizations and the ethics of journalism.