DealBook Summit – "Should People Still Trust the Media in 2025?"

Podcast: DealBook Summit (The New York Times)
Episode Date: December 5, 2025
Theme: An unflinching roundtable on the fractured nature of trust in media, the forces "interrupting" journalism—including politics, technology, and personality-driven brands—and how those on the inside see the future of news and public trust.

Episode Overview

In this robust live panel recorded at the 2025 DealBook Summit, a diverse group of media figures, journalists, and commentators gather to answer a core question: Should people trust the media in 2025? The discussion spans public trust, political interference, the rise of personality-driven "journalists," financial and technological pressures, and normative questions about what journalism is and should be. The conversation is lively, candid, and sometimes confrontational, laying bare both industry anxieties and deep splits over what the future of trustworthy information might look like.

Panelists

Amna Nawaz (Co-anchor, PBS NewsHour)
Ben Shapiro (Co-founder, Daily Wire)
Charlamagne Tha God (Co-host, The Breakfast Club)
Stephanie Ruhle (Host, MSNBC's The 11th Hour)
John Favreau (Co-founder, Crooked Media)
David Remnick (Editor, The New Yorker)
Andrew Schulz (Comedian, Co-host of Flagrant Podcast and Brilliant Idiots)
Moderator (DealBook Summit host)
Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times, event introduction)

Key Topics & Insights

1. Should People Trust the Media in 2025?

Timestamps: 00:49–08:18

Immediate Reactions
- Answers ranged from "yes" (Amna Nawaz, Stephanie Ruhle), "no" (Ben Shapiro), to conditional ("trust the media that earns your trust" - Charlamagne; "It depends" - John Favreau; "What is 'the media'?" - David Remnick; "Trust media to serve their audience, not necessarily the truth" - Andrew Schulz).
Charlamagne:

"You know what you're going to get when you tune in to Fox News...MSNBC...it's all about serving their audience. Trust the media that earns your trust." (06:09)
David Remnick:

"Trust is not something given automatically and shouldn't be." (05:10)
Ben Shapiro:

"Telling people they should trust the media doesn't answer why they don't." (02:16)
Stephanie Ruhle:
Highlights the value of diversity:

"Isn't it great that Ben has the platform today, whereas 20, 30 years ago he might not have that opportunity?" (03:00) Notable Moment: Panelists push back against generalizing about "the media."

2. The 'Interruptions': Forces Transforming Journalism

a. Trump’s Direct Disruption

Timestamps: 08:18–22:05

Moderator: Outlines Trump’s "interrupter-in-chief" role—suing media, threatening licenses, and favoring friendly outlets.
David Remnick:

"The summation of these lawsuits, these threats... rhyme in the most serious way with what I’ve seen...in authoritarian regimes." (10:34)
Ben Shapiro:

"Trump is more coroner than killer of journalism...journalism had already lost credibility with many before Trump." (11:02)
Charlamagne:

"The media protected them too, though... I saw Biden’s decline, why weren’t mainstream outlets telling that story sooner?" (14:02)
Andrew Schulz:
Emphasizes that business decisions—like media mergers—compromise journalistic backbone:

"If you want Americans to trust the media, then prove you care about the media, not about mergers." (18:39)

b. Journalists as Brands

Timestamps: 59:17–73:01

Personalities like Ben Shapiro, Charlamagne, John Favreau, and Andrew Schulz embody the rise of individualized media brands—creating both influence and new ethical dilemmas.
Ben Shapiro:

"Trump is such a magnetic force that the effects of [radicals like] Fuentes may matter more for the next election and future of the Republican Party." (62:52)
Stephanie Ruhle:

"Is it naive to ask politicians to simply denounce racism to win? The majority of people care about what affects them, not what offends them." (68:02)
Moderator: Raises whether individual shows and hosts can shape or correct political movements.

c. Technological Disruptions

Timestamps: 40:01–44:30, 52:20–53:34

Andrew Schulz:

"We no longer live in monoculture… We live in a thousand different realities." (41:15)
- Algorithmic platforms (especially TikTok) accelerate division and reward the most polarizing content.
Charlamagne & Schulz:
Raise the issue of "media as an asset class"—suggesting corporate/PE ownership leads to conflicts of interest and less public trust.

3. Media Bias, Coverage Errors, and Agendas (COVID, Elections, Immigration)

Timestamps: 27:50–44:30, 36:19–44:30

On COVID:
- Ben Shapiro:
  
  "If all the errors [in legacy media] tend toward one direction, then you start to question the underlying bias of the newsroom." (34:04)
- Amna Nawaz:
  
  "What was worrying about COVID was that when you seed enough doubt in the traditional deliverers of information... it can cause real damage." (31:09)
- Consensus: Science evolved rapidly, and so did media coverage—some errors inevitable, but trust depends on transparency about missteps.
On Elections:
- Ben Shapiro & John Favreau:
  Dissect how media coverage tracked too closely to polling, and how consumers' conclusions differ from nuanced reporting; complaint that "gestalt" (general vibe) overcomes detailed facts—especially in viral/shareable media.
- Andrew Schulz:
  
  "The time it takes to correct a narrative may be a decade; corrections rarely go as viral as the original misconception." (53:14)
On Immigration:
- Stephanie Ruhle:
  
  "The challenge for good journalists is how do you tell people a truth they might not love, but that they accept? You just tell them the truth." (38:03)
- Charlamagne:
  
  "These newsrooms…have agendas... when people aren’t buying into the programming, they try to push it harder instead of listening to the people." (38:54)

4. Narratives, Facts, and Algorithmic Distortion

Timestamps: 44:30–59:12, 51:33–53:34

Andrew Schulz:

"When the rhetoric has to be so extreme to cross over, it's the only way to break out of your silo. That's what the algorithms reward." (42:06)
David Remnick:

"We must not lose sight of hard reporting. If we lose that, we lose something essential in democracy." (52:20)

On Narratives vs. Facts:

Viral narratives ("the Russia hoax," COVID conspiracies) can withstand factual correction, especially on algorithm-driven platforms.
Andrew Schulz:
Suggests digital media should come with "nutrition facts" like food, warning consumers against swallowing the salacious as truth. (43:44)
John Favreau:

"We're going to need a gatekeeper, though. Now we're bringing the gatekeepers back." (44:19)

5. Responsibility & Ethics: The Journalist vs. The Entertainer

Timestamps: 73:01–92:10

Debate Over Interview Tactics:
- Moderator presses Andrew Schulz on letting Trump make false claims unchecked on his podcast.
- Schulz:
  
  "I'm not a journalist. I'm a comedian. My job is to reveal humanity, not to 'gotcha' guests." (88:20)
- Ben Shapiro:
  
  "We're not all in the same industry... My critique was of the audience, which can no longer tell the difference between the Joe Rogan podcast and a PBS sit-down." (89:17)
- Amna Nawaz:
  
  "The messengers matter as much as the message… as journalists we have a duty to look at things from different sides and hold ourselves to different standards." (92:03)
- Charlamagne:
  
  "People know what they're getting when they tune in. But the practice of journalism—earning trust—remains a distinct duty." (92:10)
- General agreement: More sources equals more responsibility for the consumer to discern substance, but "news as entertainment" is here to stay.

Memorable Quotes

"Trust is not something given automatically and shouldn't be."
— David Remnick (05:10)

"We do not share the same information. We live in a thousand different realities."
— Andrew Schulz (41:15)

"The media protected [Biden] too, though. …Why wasn't telling that story the year before this break?"
— Charlamagne Tha God (14:02)

"If all the errors tend toward one direction, then you start to question the underlying bias of the newsroom."
— Ben Shapiro (34:04)

"To get people to trust the media, you have to prove you care about the media, not about mergers."
— Andrew Schulz (18:39)

"The basic idea here is not that the media don’t do reporting. It’s what they choose to report and how."
— Ben Shapiro (31:09)

"I think journalism is a practice that no one should be granted blanket trust...we have to earn that every day."
— Amna Nawaz (73:28)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Description | Timestamps | |---------|-------------|------------| | Trust in Media | Opening "yes/no" debate | 00:49–08:18 | | Trump’s Disruption | Lawsuits, press attacks, political threats | 08:18–22:05 | | The “Trump as Coroner” Argument | Shapiro’s critique of preexisting distrust | 11:02–12:27 | | Journalism vs. Corporate Ownership | Impact of mergers, business vs. press | 18:39–20:43 | | COVID & Media Bias | How errors, science, and politics played out | 27:50–38:00 | | Algorithmic Polarization | Siloed realities, TikTok’s effect | 40:01–44:30 | | Rise of Brands/Personalities | Media as individual-driven | 59:17–73:01 | | Journalistic Responsibility | Fact-checking, interviews, and limits | 73:01–92:10 |

Resonant Takeaways

“The Media” Is Too Broad: Trust must be earned story by story, outlet by outlet.
Technology and Personality Have Fundamentally Changed the Landscape: The dynamism, reach, and chaos of new platforms and personalities offer both promise and peril; the old "gatekeepers" are gone, but there’s now a crisis of discernment and responsibility.
Audiences Must Be More Discerning: Multiple panelists urge consumers to develop a “nutrition label” mindset; to recognize entertainment vs. reporting, and partisan angle vs. hard journalism.
Journalists Must Keep Earning Trust: Explicit recognition of bias, focus on strenuous reporting, and commitment to truth—over business interest or algorithmic appeal—remain crucial.
Polarization and Performance: Rhetoric is amped up to cross audience silos. "Clickbait" and "rage-bait" drive engagement, but erode common ground and trust.
Optimism & Concern: While fragmentation breeds skepticism, panelists are unified in the idea that dogged, transparent reporting is indispensable—and so is media literacy.

Closing Thought

As Andrew Schulz observes, the future of trust in media may depend as much on the vigilance, skepticism, and appetite for nuance among audiences as on the ethics, backbone, and creativity of journalists and commentators themselves.

For full context, listen to the complete episode on your preferred podcast platform or at nytimes.com/podcasts.

DealBook Summit – "Should People Still Trust the Media in 2025?"

Episode Overview

Panelists

Amna Nawaz (Co-anchor, PBS NewsHour)
Ben Shapiro (Co-founder, Daily Wire)
Charlamagne Tha God (Co-host, The Breakfast Club)
Stephanie Ruhle (Host, MSNBC's The 11th Hour)
John Favreau (Co-founder, Crooked Media)
David Remnick (Editor, The New Yorker)
Andrew Schulz (Comedian, Co-host of Flagrant Podcast and Brilliant Idiots)
Moderator (DealBook Summit host)
Andrew Ross Sorkin (New York Times, event introduction)

Key Topics & Insights

1. Should People Trust the Media in 2025?

Timestamps: 00:49–08:18

Immediate Reactions
- Answers ranged from "yes" (Amna Nawaz, Stephanie Ruhle), "no" (Ben Shapiro), to conditional ("trust the media that earns your trust" - Charlamagne; "It depends" - John Favreau; "What is 'the media'?" - David Remnick; "Trust media to serve their audience, not necessarily the truth" - Andrew Schulz).
Charlamagne:

"You know what you're going to get when you tune in to Fox News...MSNBC...it's all about serving their audience. Trust the media that earns your trust." (06:09)
David Remnick:

"Trust is not something given automatically and shouldn't be." (05:10)
Ben Shapiro:

"Telling people they should trust the media doesn't answer why they don't." (02:16)
Stephanie Ruhle:
Highlights the value of diversity:

"Isn't it great that Ben has the platform today, whereas 20, 30 years ago he might not have that opportunity?" (03:00) Notable Moment: Panelists push back against generalizing about "the media."

2. The 'Interruptions': Forces Transforming Journalism

a. Trump’s Direct Disruption

Timestamps: 08:18–22:05

Moderator: Outlines Trump’s "interrupter-in-chief" role—suing media, threatening licenses, and favoring friendly outlets.
David Remnick:

"The summation of these lawsuits, these threats... rhyme in the most serious way with what I’ve seen...in authoritarian regimes." (10:34)
Ben Shapiro:

"Trump is more coroner than killer of journalism...journalism had already lost credibility with many before Trump." (11:02)
Charlamagne:

"The media protected them too, though... I saw Biden’s decline, why weren’t mainstream outlets telling that story sooner?" (14:02)
Andrew Schulz:
Emphasizes that business decisions—like media mergers—compromise journalistic backbone:

"If you want Americans to trust the media, then prove you care about the media, not about mergers." (18:39)

b. Journalists as Brands

Timestamps: 59:17–73:01

Personalities like Ben Shapiro, Charlamagne, John Favreau, and Andrew Schulz embody the rise of individualized media brands—creating both influence and new ethical dilemmas.
Ben Shapiro:

"Trump is such a magnetic force that the effects of [radicals like] Fuentes may matter more for the next election and future of the Republican Party." (62:52)
Stephanie Ruhle:

"Is it naive to ask politicians to simply denounce racism to win? The majority of people care about what affects them, not what offends them." (68:02)
Moderator: Raises whether individual shows and hosts can shape or correct political movements.

c. Technological Disruptions

Timestamps: 40:01–44:30, 52:20–53:34

Andrew Schulz:

"We no longer live in monoculture… We live in a thousand different realities." (41:15)
- Algorithmic platforms (especially TikTok) accelerate division and reward the most polarizing content.
Charlamagne & Schulz:
Raise the issue of "media as an asset class"—suggesting corporate/PE ownership leads to conflicts of interest and less public trust.

3. Media Bias, Coverage Errors, and Agendas (COVID, Elections, Immigration)

Timestamps: 27:50–44:30, 36:19–44:30

On COVID:
- Ben Shapiro:
  
  "If all the errors [in legacy media] tend toward one direction, then you start to question the underlying bias of the newsroom." (34:04)
- Amna Nawaz:
  
  "What was worrying about COVID was that when you seed enough doubt in the traditional deliverers of information... it can cause real damage." (31:09)
- Consensus: Science evolved rapidly, and so did media coverage—some errors inevitable, but trust depends on transparency about missteps.
On Elections:
- Ben Shapiro & John Favreau:
  Dissect how media coverage tracked too closely to polling, and how consumers' conclusions differ from nuanced reporting; complaint that "gestalt" (general vibe) overcomes detailed facts—especially in viral/shareable media.
- Andrew Schulz:
  
  "The time it takes to correct a narrative may be a decade; corrections rarely go as viral as the original misconception." (53:14)
On Immigration:
- Stephanie Ruhle:
  
  "The challenge for good journalists is how do you tell people a truth they might not love, but that they accept? You just tell them the truth." (38:03)
- Charlamagne:
  
  "These newsrooms…have agendas... when people aren’t buying into the programming, they try to push it harder instead of listening to the people." (38:54)

4. Narratives, Facts, and Algorithmic Distortion

Timestamps: 44:30–59:12, 51:33–53:34

Andrew Schulz:

"When the rhetoric has to be so extreme to cross over, it's the only way to break out of your silo. That's what the algorithms reward." (42:06)
David Remnick:

"We must not lose sight of hard reporting. If we lose that, we lose something essential in democracy." (52:20)

On Narratives vs. Facts:

Viral narratives ("the Russia hoax," COVID conspiracies) can withstand factual correction, especially on algorithm-driven platforms.
Andrew Schulz:
Suggests digital media should come with "nutrition facts" like food, warning consumers against swallowing the salacious as truth. (43:44)
John Favreau:

"We're going to need a gatekeeper, though. Now we're bringing the gatekeepers back." (44:19)

5. Responsibility & Ethics: The Journalist vs. The Entertainer

Timestamps: 73:01–92:10

Debate Over Interview Tactics:
- Moderator presses Andrew Schulz on letting Trump make false claims unchecked on his podcast.
- Schulz:
  
  "I'm not a journalist. I'm a comedian. My job is to reveal humanity, not to 'gotcha' guests." (88:20)
- Ben Shapiro:
  
  "We're not all in the same industry... My critique was of the audience, which can no longer tell the difference between the Joe Rogan podcast and a PBS sit-down." (89:17)
- Amna Nawaz:
  
  "The messengers matter as much as the message… as journalists we have a duty to look at things from different sides and hold ourselves to different standards." (92:03)
- Charlamagne:
  
  "People know what they're getting when they tune in. But the practice of journalism—earning trust—remains a distinct duty." (92:10)
- General agreement: More sources equals more responsibility for the consumer to discern substance, but "news as entertainment" is here to stay.

Memorable Quotes

"Trust is not something given automatically and shouldn't be."
— David Remnick (05:10)

"We do not share the same information. We live in a thousand different realities."
— Andrew Schulz (41:15)

"The media protected [Biden] too, though. …Why wasn't telling that story the year before this break?"
— Charlamagne Tha God (14:02)

"If all the errors tend toward one direction, then you start to question the underlying bias of the newsroom."
— Ben Shapiro (34:04)

"To get people to trust the media, you have to prove you care about the media, not about mergers."
— Andrew Schulz (18:39)

"The basic idea here is not that the media don’t do reporting. It’s what they choose to report and how."
— Ben Shapiro (31:09)

"I think journalism is a practice that no one should be granted blanket trust...we have to earn that every day."
— Amna Nawaz (73:28)

Timestamps for Key Segments

Resonant Takeaways

“The Media” Is Too Broad: Trust must be earned story by story, outlet by outlet.
Technology and Personality Have Fundamentally Changed the Landscape: The dynamism, reach, and chaos of new platforms and personalities offer both promise and peril; the old "gatekeepers" are gone, but there’s now a crisis of discernment and responsibility.
Audiences Must Be More Discerning: Multiple panelists urge consumers to develop a “nutrition label” mindset; to recognize entertainment vs. reporting, and partisan angle vs. hard journalism.
Journalists Must Keep Earning Trust: Explicit recognition of bias, focus on strenuous reporting, and commitment to truth—over business interest or algorithmic appeal—remain crucial.
Polarization and Performance: Rhetoric is amped up to cross audience silos. "Clickbait" and "rage-bait" drive engagement, but erode common ground and trust.
Optimism & Concern: While fragmentation breeds skepticism, panelists are unified in the idea that dogged, transparent reporting is indispensable—and so is media literacy.

Closing Thought

For full context, listen to the complete episode on your preferred podcast platform or at nytimes.com/podcasts.

wavePod

Should People Still Trust the Media in 2025?

Powered by Wave AI

Summary

DealBook Summit – "Should People Still Trust the Media in 2025?"

Episode Overview

Panelists

Key Topics & Insights

1. Should People Trust the Media in 2025?

2. The 'Interruptions': Forces Transforming Journalism

a. Trump’s Direct Disruption

b. Journalists as Brands

c. Technological Disruptions

3. Media Bias, Coverage Errors, and Agendas (COVID, Elections, Immigration)

4. Narratives, Facts, and Algorithmic Distortion

5. Responsibility & Ethics: The Journalist vs. The Entertainer

Memorable Quotes

Timestamps for Key Segments

Resonant Takeaways

Closing Thought

Summary

DealBook Summit – "Should People Still Trust the Media in 2025?"

Episode Overview

Panelists

Key Topics & Insights

1. Should People Trust the Media in 2025?

2. The 'Interruptions': Forces Transforming Journalism

a. Trump’s Direct Disruption

b. Journalists as Brands

c. Technological Disruptions

3. Media Bias, Coverage Errors, and Agendas (COVID, Elections, Immigration)

4. Narratives, Facts, and Algorithmic Distortion

5. Responsibility & Ethics: The Journalist vs. The Entertainer

Memorable Quotes

Timestamps for Key Segments

Resonant Takeaways

Closing Thought