Abstract

Abstract

This thesis will be titled “From Teleprompter to Table Talk: How Authenticity is Replacing Perceived Objectivity”. The paper will analyze why the American audience has increasingly begun to shift their trust from traditional media to personality driven sources, primarily podcasts, to receive their news. This paper will dive into the numbers showing an undeniable decline in legacy media viewers and an exponential growth in podcast viewership. Obtaining points of view from multiple sources on media analysis, this thesis will argue that podcasters and other alternative sources of news, create trust with your viewers through authenticity and transparency. Consequentially, it can be argued legacy media has lost their standing due to their lack of authenticity and perhaps transparency.

Daily production of news broadcasts, down to the local level, are scripted and toned to create a formally packaged journalistic piece. This style of presentation paired with media skepticism leaves audiences wanting more transparency. This thesis will also argue, this isn’t a newly found hunger in the American public today. The appetite for transparency in journalism and political coverage has been roaring since Hunter S. Thompson came on the scene, creating “gonza journalism”. The thesis will contend that detached objectivity and a warm conversational tone is the recipe of podcasts success and where legacy media fails.

The world of journalism is in the middle of a major shift. How we as a society consume, create, and share the news is changing. Legacy media stations and trained career journalists are losing their standing as the authority on news and what is deemed credible and important for public consumption. This thesis will expand on the pros and cons of how the changing ways news and media are dispatched to the masses.

Year Manuscript Completed

Spring 2026

Senior Project Advisor

Professor George Barton

Degree Awarded

Bachelor of Integrated Studies Degree

Field of Study

Communications

Document Type

Thesis

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