Paradoxically, these institutions are probably the best they've ever been. We trusted them more 100 years ago because we didn't know better, but we're now letting perfect be the the enemy of good. Wise men once said:

"In prison, I learned that everything in this world, including money, operates not on reality..."

"But the perception of reality..."

Our distrust of institutions is a prison of our own making.

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mitthrowaway2 an hour ago | parent [-]

I can't speak for the other institutions but I'd be shocked if the press, as an institution, is the best it's ever been. I know a lot of people who left that industry because of the way that the Internet and social media eroded the profitability of reporting while pushing on virality, articles were tuned to declining attention spans, outlets leaned more on centralized newswire services, and local reporting collapsed nearly to zero.

	▲	NoGravitas 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I think the press, as an institution, was at its peak post-Watergate, and pre- ... something. I don't know when exactly the press began to decay; possibly with the rise of 24-hour cable news in the 1990s; maybe the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, maybe the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The media landscape was certainly severely decayed by 2003, and has not gotten any better.