Credibility of a Media Story Is Mostly

¶ … credibility of a media story is mostly characterized by an objective, unbiased stance. If, to elaborate, the author sees both sides of incident and steps out of his or hoer own agenda in the way that he or she characterizes it, and if he makes great attempts to see it in a dispassionate way despite his political and ideological leanings and perspective.

Other ways that the story achieves creditability is if the author abstains from ideologically loaded words such as ' enemy', 'fundamentalist' and so forth. This is particularly difficult when writing from an involved, and culturally biased perspective.

Thirdly, the author by quoting credible sources -- and this is particularly so for a scientific-based article -- indicates his creditability in this way. The more complete sources that he or she quotes with full details and facts -- all of this adds to his credibility. Numbers and facts (such s names, dates and so forth) also add to the creditably of the news source and, in the case of a controversial article, inclusion of both sides of the story provides greater credibility.

Credibility can also be injected by individuals outside of the author's political affiliations being interviewed and their opinions elicited.

Then too, credibility is seen as the timeliness factor. If the story occurs disjointed to the event, namely if it is not current, or if it is recorded as something with great lapse in history, it is bound to cause aspersion on the rest of the story.

Similarly, too lapses in the reporter's judgment and misquoted or inaccurate facts and details have a rebounding effect by bringing his entire report into question.

All together, general media has lost much of its credibility and this may be due to the fact that it is associated as a moneymaking machine. If fewer stories were tied to celebrities, fashion fads, corporate profits, and business interests and if more reports were to involve themselves -- as they once were long ago in the beginning -- with serious-minded dedication to social and national interests with the intent of serving national and global good, they may be better trusted. Particularly, if they did not insert their own editorials and opinion as part of the piece.

In a similar way, the emphasis seems to be on stories that are more "engaging" or "entertaining" or in sync with the reader's desires. This too erodes credibility. Trustworthiness is won when earnestness is reinvented and the media focuses on pieces with social and political significance and writes about these in an honest, above-board manner.

Each of the media -- TV, newspapers, internet -- has its own particular issues with credibility, but with all of them and perhaps particularly with TV and Internet new stories, credibility is corroded by the barrage of advertisements and newscasts that some local stations, in particular, fall back on in order to promote and cash in on their popularity. Integrating their news shows with promotional appeals distracts from the credibility of the whole, and heavily glossing their performances with advertisements provides a moneyed tinge to productions. With advertisements, drama, and entertainment blurring into news stories, it becomes difficult to distinguish between their reality of hard news and opinions or editorial content. Believability of the article becomes diminished.