Trust was the buzzword at this year’s annual gathering of the California News Publisher’s Association.
Nearly 200 news and media executives attended the two-day Capital Conference at the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel in Sacramento on Wednesday and Thursday.
Also attending were lawmakers, lawyers and subject matter experts who came together to discuss the public’s trust in media in a time of rising misinformation and disinformation.
“It was a terrific three-day event bringing publishers and editors from around the state to engage around the most important issue that faces our democracy today, and that is the proliferation of dis- and misinformation,” said Charles Ford Champion II, president and CEO of CNPA.
Guest speakers included author-journalist Brian Karem, former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, Real Clear Politics co-founder and President Tom Bevan, political strategist and former White House adviser David Axelrod, and Google’s Global Vice President of News Richard Gingras.
Speakers did not hold back, with Karem promising at the outset of his remarks that his goal was to challenge everyone in the room. He then went on to urge California’s top media executives to get back to the basics of journalism and do better, including more aggressive reporting on government officials and fewer clickbait stories. Along the way, he offered plenty of colorful anecdotes from his own career and from his book, “Free the Press.”
Barr offered polite but strident criticism of what he described as the media’s relentless negative coverage of President George H.W. Bush and the one-sided, overblown coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Barr is one of only two people to have served twice as U.S. attorney general — once under George H.W. Bush and most recently for President Donald Trump.
In his remarks, Barr defended Trump but made it clear he did not believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He called for more balanced, less partisan…
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