Distrust of the ‘mainstream media’ is increasingly common, and has led to the spreading of conspiracy theories.
The argument
The media is increasingly portrayed as untrustworthy and calling an outlet part of the mainstream media is increasingly an insult. The media is no longer trusted to bring people even-handed reporting. People are driven away from the mainstream media and search for their news elsewhere, leading them to instead trust small outlets who may simply be peddling conspiracies. This inherent distrust of the media creates a closed circle of reasoning. Evidence directly disproving a conspiracy theory can be disregarded simply by accusing it of being a coverup orchestrated by the media.
Premises
Counter-arguments
The direction of causation is the weak point. Distrust of the media and belief in conspiracy theories clearly correlate, but it is at least as plausible that conspiracist thinking produces media distrust as the reverse — someone already committed to a hidden-plot worldview will dismiss mainstream outlets as complicit, so the 'closed circle' the argument describes could be the effect of conspiracy belief rather than its cause. Distrust is also insufficient on its own: very large numbers of people distrust mainstream media without adopting conspiracy theories, so distrust cannot be the explanation for why the subset who do believe them do so. That points back toward the sibling explanations — the cognitive and psychological factors such as pattern-seeking, need for control and in-group protection that generate both the conspiracy belief and the media distrust together — suggesting distrust is better understood as a symptom of the same underlying disposition than as the root cause.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The causal arrow may run the other way: a prior commitment to conspiracy thinking leads people to reject mainstream media, so distrust can be an effect rather than a cause. [Rejecting P3] Vast numbers distrust the media without turning to conspiracy theories, so distrust is insufficient to explain why the minority who believe them do.