Blame Woodward and Bernstein / Deepthroat. Watergate popularized the use of anonymous sources for mainstream reporting, and it exploded from there when they realize they could get away with it. I'm sure there's the rare, RARE situation when anonymous sources are needed, but most of the time the idea should be shunned, because it's just hearsay and gossip at that point. Might be true, might not.
As far as "trusted media" goes, this is actually only a modern concept in US news. Before WW1 most news was "yellow journalism", gossip rags and such. Journalism wasn't a respected profession, and nobody trusted them. People knew they had to selectively pick and choose their news sources. People were smarter, more critical of what they heard. Then the major newspapers worked together to clean up their image and distinguish themselves from the rags. Politicians helped promote the idea so the newspapers would help push the US towards WW1. (look up Michael Malice for more info)
Walter Cronkite cemented the idea of a "trusted media source" in the public eye, and our collective critical thinking skills went down from there. We now have social media and Wikpedia pushing the idea of "trusted media sources", which removes our personal responsibility and allows media programmed to be controlled from a few influential sources. People no longer believe something unless a talking head or major publication tells them it's true. This really needs to change if we want to keep our republic..
Blame Woodward and Bernstein / Deepthroat. Watergate popularized the use of anonymous sources for mainstream reporting, and it exploded from there when they realize they could get away with it. I'm sure there's the rare, RARE situation when anonymous sources are needed, but most of the time the idea should be shunned, because it's just hearsay and gossip at that point. Might be true, might not.
As far as "trusted media" goes, this is actually only a modern concept in US news. Before WW1 most news was "yellow journalism", gossip rags and such. Journalism wasn't a respected profession, and nobody trusted them. People knew they had to selectively pick and choose their news sources. People were smarter, more critical of what they heard. Then the major newspapers worked together to clean up their image and distinguish themselves from the rags. Politicians helped promote the idea so the newspapers would help push the US towards WW1. (look up Michael Malice for more info)
Walter Cronkite cemented the idea of a "trusted media source" in the public eye, and our collective critical thinking skills went down from there. We now have social media and Wikpedia pushing the idea of "trusted media sources", which removes our personal responsibility and allows media programmed to be controlled from a few influential sources. People no longer believe something unless a talking head or major publication tells them it's true. This really needs to change if we want to keep our republic..