In Brief: Americans Feel the Media Misleads Them; Workers Embrace ‘Conscious Quitting’

Half of U.S. News Consumers Surveyed Feel Media Intends to Mislead Them

In surveys by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, 50% of respondents disagreed with the statement that most national news organizations “do not intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public.” As NiemanLab reports, just 26% of Americans surveyed view the news media favorably overall, with many people distrusting the media on an emotional level.

Per the surveys, 44% of Americans have high emotional trust in local news organizations, compared with 21% who feel that trust for national news organizations. Meanwhile, 45% of respondents who named a cable-news outlet (CNN, Fox News or MSNBC) as their top news source exhibited low emotional trust toward national news organizations overall.

Among those who usually turn to U.S. news networks (ABC, CBS or NBC), only 17% reported low emotional trust in national news organizations overall, while 37% reported high trust.

Perceptions of political bias in news coverage have increased across political affiliations. Young Americans reported feeling the lowest emotional trust in national news organizations.

Silence Can No Longer Be a Condition of Severance, New Federal Rule Says

For laid-off employees, severance packages have long-contained conditions, including the employee’s silence. But as CNN reports, under a new rule from the National Labor Relations Board that took effect in late February, employees who receive severance packages can no longer be silenced in two specific ways that the board says violate the National Labor Relations Act.

Employers can no longer include a broadly written confidentiality clause that requires employees to keep mum about the terms of severance packages they receive. Under the new rule, companies can also no longer include a broadly written nondisparagement clause that prohibits employees from discussing terms and conditions of their employment with third parties.

All U.S. business employers except railroads and airlines are subject to the National Labor Relations Board’s authority. With the new regulation, employers must review and possibly revise their severance agreements so those documents don’t include overly broad language that would restrict workers’ rights in the two ways specified.

Will ‘Conscious Quitting’ See Employees Leave Over Company Values?

Last year, the trend of “quiet quitting” — young employees losing interest in jobs they still needed financially — made headlines. As Fortune reports, former Unilever CEO Paul Polman says an era of “conscious quitting” is coming, in which employees will leave companies whose values don’t match their own. 

Polman, author of the 2021 book “Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take,” commissioned a study called the “Net Positive Employee Barometer.” In surveys of about 4,000 employees in the U.S. and U.K., almost half said they would consider quitting if an employer’s values differ from their own. A third have already resigned for this reason, a figure that climbs higher among Gen Z and millennial workers, the study says.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Polman wrote in the study’s foreword. “The numerous studies telling us that employees want better pay, more flexibility and greater well-being are absolutely right.” But many employees also “crave meaning and fulfillment on top of money and flexibility.”

Artificial Intelligence Is Fast Becoming Part of Daily Life

Many Americans are aware that they encounter artificial intelligence in customer service chatbots, product recommendations, fitness trackers and other features of daily life, Pew Research Center finds.

People need to know about common uses of artificial intelligence so that appropriate roles and boundaries for the technology can be publicly debated, Pew says. Experts have raised moral, ethical and legal questions about the expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence, which enables computers to perform tasks and make decisions that would otherwise require human intelligence. 

About a quarter (27%) of Americans surveyed say they interact with artificial intelligence almost constantly or several times a day. Just 15% say they’re more excited than concerned about the increasing use of artificial intelligence in everyday life, while 38% are more concerned than excited, and 46% express an equal mix of concern and excitement. 

In addition, 62% of respondents know that artificial intelligence is being used in security cameras that recognize their faces, Pew finds.