Americans’ distrust in the news media made national headlines again recently, spurred by a Gallup poll in September showing only 31% place at least a fair amount of credence in mass-media reporting, an all-time low.

This poll, which placed the media lower in esteem than all levels of government, seemingly prompted decisions by several major newspapers to not endorse a presidential candidate this year. In a bombshell op-ed a week before the election, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos addressed perceptions about credibility head-on.

“Our profession is now the least trusted of all,” Bezos lamented. “Something we are doing is clearly not working.”

Bezos went on to suggest that the Post and other legacy media are out of touch with most Americans. “The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite,” he wrote. “More and more, we talk to ourselves.

“To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles,” he wrote later in the op-ed. “Some changes will be a return to the past, and some will be new inventions. Criticism will be part and parcel of everything new, of course. This is the way of the world. None of this will be easy, but it will be worth it.”

As Fox News reports, Bezos’ Post has been struggling financially for the past several years, with declines in subscriptions and revenue leading to buyouts and layoffs of employees. His non-endorsement decision didn’t help in the short run, as some 200,000 outraged Kamala Harris supporters cancelled their subscriptions and his newsroom went into an uproar.

But if Bezos’ long-term goal is to gain credibility among average Americans, he could look to a recent worldwide survey by Reuters Institute as a guide. In the survey published in June, 65% said they gravitate to news sources that “represent people like me fairly.” Moreover, 56% said they choose outlets whose “values are the same as mine.”

The results placed empathy behind only transparency and high journalistic standards in terms of what’s most important to consumers. And they’re consistent with the feedback we get in agricultural media.

In my role as a board member for North American Agricultural Journalists and at various events, I’ve had the opportunity to interact with journalists from various national media outlets, including the Washington Post. I’m always struck by the keen interest they show in what we in farm media do and what makes us successful.

As I’ve written before, our secret sauce is the bond we have created with readers by living among them and understanding, and in some cases doing, what they do. People prefer media that understands their lifestyles and values and doesn’t preach to them from on high. Or sit in a newsroom and complain about them.