I am told over and over that the greatest quality reporter can have is curiosity.

Then why aren’t journalists even slightly curious about why they lost their credibility from their customers?

In 1976, 72% of Americans had a “great deal of trust and confidence in the mass media” to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” according to that year’s Gallup survey. By 2024 that number plummeted to 31%.

Congrats, honored members of the press — you’re trusted less than Congress.

Likewise, in 1976 a scant 4% of Americans’ trust in the media was “none at all.” Today that number has ballooned to 36%, a nine-fold increase. And those who’s trust and confidence in the media is “none at all” or “not very much,” make up 69% of all Americans.

Hey media, nearly 70% of us don’t trust you! How do you have no curiosity about that?! It seems most journalists have a violent avoidance of the issue altogether.

Do journalists even see they stoke the treacherous polarization that’s exploded like an epidemic? In 1976, 63% of Republicans trusted the media. Today that number is 12%. Come on, people — 12%?

Even independents are on the same trajectory. In 1976, 74% trusted the media. Today only 27% do. In Colorado, independents make up half of all voters. If reporters are curious about all their industry layoffs, those people used to be customers.

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I don’t trust the media because it oozes disdain for me. The message they send me is clear — the way you see the world is simply so perverse we make no effort to hire people like you. Except for the Gazette, I have never seen a Colorado outlet be proactive in hiring for ideological diversity.

Like most conservatives and libertarians, I am unwelcome from mainstream media. I used to listen to Colorado Public Radio daily, but their pure scorn for those like me is palpable. What comes out of my cars speakers screams, “your values don’t exist here.” I stopped listening.

The message of their tax-supported broadcasts is not as much “we hate you” as it is “we don’t recognize you exist.”

Oh, it’s not personal. I know a lot of CPR folks and they are good, well-meaning people. But I see the world on a spectrum of liberty-versus-coercion. It’s pretty clear folks there see the world on a spectrum of oppressed-versus-oppressor. There is a governmental answer to every challenge.

This world view is ubiquitous in mass media. It shows in story selection. Journalists love to claim their professionalism scrubs bias out of a story. Even if true, the stories they choose demonstrate their lack of ideological diversity.

As I have for decades, I continue to suggest a simple exercise to get an indication of newsroom culture. No one’s taken me up.

Coloradans voted about 54% for Biden and 43% for Trump. If newsroom staff was representative of the population they serve, they would vote roughly in the same proportion. So, have a secret ballot in the newsroom to see where news reporters land in comparison to their customers.

I suggested this to the head of CPR news after Trump won the first time. He was aghast and looked at me like I just suggested videotaping his employees making babies.

I was told from three different CPR reporters separately no one in the newsroom voted for Trump. That’s a bit different than the 43% of Coloradans who did and still pay taxes to support public radio.

It’s more telling when I wrote about CPR’s voting habits, instead of starting a conversation of how to bring some ideological balance to the newsroom, reporters were told to stop talking about who they voted for.

I sat down with Kyle Clark of 9News recently for my show “Devil’s Advocate.” Love him or hate him, he is smart, articulate, takes pride in his work and is the most influential commentator in the state.

When I asked him how many people in his shop voted for Trump, he too seemed aghast. We don’t talk about such things, he informed me. Why the hell not?

They can proudly tell us the racial and gender ratios of their employees. Might they suspect what their ideological ratio is and simply don’t want to see it proven?

Just as nationally the Democratic party is introspective about their failure, newsrooms should get curious about themselves — and for the same reason.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts “The Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara” on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.