“In the 1970s, most of the US population expressed a great deal of trust in mass media…Now only about ⅓ of Americans feel that way,” explains Marc Ehrhardt, president of the New Orleans-based communications enterprise, The Ehrhardt Group.
Ehrhardt joined the show to discuss something we all feel, but don't often talk about: We, the American people, are drowning in information.
Smartphones, video streaming services, email notifications, social media platforms—assail us at all hours, leaving us to either sort through it or block it out.
And make no mistake, the bombardment takes a measurable toll on our spirit.
We're less trusting, less curious, and less optimistic about the future. Turns out, the effect of being dealt so much information typically causes us to feel the need to be right at all costs rather than properly informed.
Part of Ehrhardt’s work is to poll people of the Gulf South to gauge their opinions about the state of the country, its media, and their outlook toward the future.
The Ehrhardt Group's most recent report, titled "The Game isn't Changing. It's Changed. The State of the Media in 2025," shows a rather bleak outlook on how people view and trust mass media and local news outlets.
“What’s become clear, especially in 2025, the optimism just isn't there," says Ehrhardt. "The optimism about where we are, who we are.”
Erhardt explains that the Gulf South still indexes higher than the rest of the country in terms of optimism, but every year it seems to slip further downward.
What's Behind this Low Optimism?
Ehrhardt says that research suggests, “One of the key factors is the amount of information heaped on us every minute of every day.”
Part of this, Ehrhardt explains, is because the vast and ever-expanding media scene makes it more likely for us to become information-recluses, where we restrict the type of media we take in rather than broaden it.
“When we don’t trust the information we’re getting, we retreat into what we already know,” Ehrhardt explains. “And when we retreat into what we already know, it makes it hard for accurate information to break through that bubble.”
The result is a hideously blurred line between news and opinion. And, given we jump right to opinion segments before giving facts a fair shake, we become more mistrusting and cynical.
Ehrhardt used Trump’s recent tariffs as a perfect example of how Americans rush to sides before even asking themselves if they understand the issue at hand.
“Most of the news outside of what we get locally is built around opinion sharing. It’s reflective about how we trust," says Ehrhardt. "Everybody’s got an opinion. All of a sudden, we’re all experts and geniuses around tariffs… I don’t know if anybody has ever had a serious conversation about a tariff around the kitchen table.”
It wasn't always this way. But the state of the public's view of media has steadily declined for decades. Ehrhardt explains, “Gallup released a poll recently. In the 70s, the US population had a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. The most trusted person during the Vietnam War was Walter Cronkite…Now, we’ve gone from ⅔ trusting the media, now only ⅓ of Americans feel that way… A lot of that is built around people's opinions.”
“I think everything has separated into a black and white discussion," he continues, "Everything is a fight to the death. Regardless of where your political or value leanings are, it's a fight to the death.”
The Shifting Shape of the American Dream
What's becoming clear is that people are getting sick and tired of having to play detective just to find out if a simple fact is actually a fact.
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“The trouble that’s emerging, as we found in the Gulf South Index, is that 50% of people are more concerned about misinformation coming through social media than they are about government interference in being allowed to share things on social media," Ehrhardt tells me. "WE want the government to put guardrails around it…but even though we don't trust the information we’re getting, we can’t stop scrolling."
It's a worrisome state we're in, but Erhardt also expresses that it’s not all bad, and that Americans still broadly share a unifying outlook.
“There are certain core values that we have as human beings and Americans that overlap,” Erhardt says. “It doesn’t matter what corner you come from. There are certain things that have a level of commonality. One of those things is being proud to be an American.”
Erhardt explains how his research is helping identify the modern-day approch to the age-old notion of the American Dream.
“We ask people about the American dream and whether they believe they can achieve that, because everybody has their own impression," says Ehrhardt. "The idea of the American Dream in New Orleans might look a hell of a lot different than the idea of the American Dream living in Los Angeles. But we both have a common idea of what we want for ourselves. When we start talking about values, 80% of Americans still feel like they’re proud to be an American…It’s even higher in the Gulf South.”
So you can't pronounce the American Dream to be dead, that would simply be untrue. Rather, the idea of the American Dream seems to be evolving.
“This is what’s coming out in our report in the next couple of weeks,” Erhardt explains. “We’re worrying about the future. We’re unsure if we can achieve the American Dream, but we’re proud of who we are. And maybe that’s the area we can build on… rather than trying to prove ourselves right all the time.”
“In what our research is finding," Ehrhardt concludes, "is that the idea of the American dream has gotten smaller. It’s more of a local American Dream, and more personal.”
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