The whole concept of journalism having a "good name" was a construct of the new mass media, starting with radio and moving on to network television. The whole thing of "trustworthy journalists" was sales pitch that the pubic readily swallowed. Until that time, journalists were seen as generally unsavory, which is as it should be. There have never been trustworthy journalists - even kindly Uncle Cronkite has his own agenda - and anyone who trusts journalists to interpret the truth is already lost.
Use your critical thinking skills, cross reference, analyze the use of leading phrases and subliminal suggestion in new reports, the use of word-choice to suggest something negative without actually lying... it's all very tiring, and most of us don't have the time. So, as Mark says, we go with those we trust (i.e, those who share our biases).
If you are really interested in a story, read both sides of it, then search the net for contrarian views. Read journalists you hate, and investigate for yourself whether there's likely any truth in what they say. Ask yourself why Story A is on the front page, while similar story B is buried among the minor news items.
And throw away your TV. 99% of TV news is stuff you don't need to know about (cannibal murders, scandal du jour, children stuck in drainpipes, politicians saying something stupid, economics forecasts by people who don't have a clue, human interest-aka voyeurism, foreign correspondents who report news from the hotel bar). The remaining 1% of broadcast news that focuses on anything of importance is so slanted as to be useless.
Read history and study human nature - the 2 of those will tell you what's happening better than any news report.
