Nicola Mößner (2018): Trusting the Media? TV News as a Source of
Knowledge, in: International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. 26(2), pp. 205-220 DOI: 10.1080/09672559.2018.1450079
Finalist essay of the “2017 Robert Papazian Essay Competition”
Abstract: Why do we trust TV news? What reasons might support a recipient’s assessment
of the trustworthiness of this kind of information? This paper presents a veritistic
analysis of the epistemic practice of news production and communication. The
topic is approached by discussing a detailed case study, namely the characteristics
of the most popular German news programme, called the ‘Tagesschau’. It will be
shown that a veritistic analysis can indeed provide a recipient with relevant reasons
to consider when pondering on the trustworthiness of sources of information.
Moreover, it will turn out that these reasons are part of what recipients might
gather from media literacy.