Centuries ago, planet Earth used to be an inhospitable place for most people. Because it was a world with few rules, those with power had the freedom to grab, often by brute force, whatever they wanted. Their hunting targets were not only natural resources and other forms of wealth, but also powerless human beings from whom they extracted slave labor.

New York Times columnist David Brooks says that living conditions improved gradually over time as people constructed the “sinews of civilization.” According to Brooks, the creations included constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. Brooks adds that today, these institutions “make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.”

The structures and institutions that Brooks mentions have been crumbling around the globe in the last few decades. In America, trust in the media has fallen so low that increasingly large numbers of people are tuning out many of the things journalists say. Consequently, there isn’t much advancement of public understanding occurring.

The mainstream press has to take a good portion of the blame for this outcome. Their primary duty is to inform the public about what is happening in our political, social, economic, cultural, and other important realms, and to help hold the powerful accountable. However, in recent times, traditional media outlets have not been playing this role with the required level of seriousness. Because sensationalism is what boosts ratings, it seems to have become the preoccupation.

President Trump has been saying for years that in trade, nations around the world have been ripping us off for quite a long time. But how many ordinary Americans understand how bad the situation really is? We’ve heard a lot in the last couple of decades about how offshoring of manufacturing jobs has hollowed out some previously prosperous American cities and towns. But when it comes to our trading relationships with other nations, there hasn’t been much discussion in the press. With such little knowledge about the extent of the cheating, as claimed by the president, how is any citizen supposed to make an informed judgment about whether his sledgehammer approach to the problem is justified or not?

China’s unfair trade practices are relatively well known to many Americans, hopefully. Politicians and businesspeople in this country have long complained about the entry barriers that the Chinese have put up, making it difficult for foreign firms to access that vast market. And then there are the forced technology transfers. It has been well publicized that American and other Western companies have had to share proprietary information with their counterparts in China before being allowed by the authorities to operate in the country.

It is one thing for the Trump administration to play hardball with China to get it to change its abusive trade practices. But was it necessary to apply that heavy-handed approach so indiscriminately? Global commerce shapes our lives in profound ways. Most of our jobs depend on it, and the availability of a wide variety of goods and the prices we pay for them are also determined by how well the international trading system works. Given all of that, why is it that we don’t spend more time talking about our commercial relationships with the rest of the world? Should it take enrollment in international relations degree programs at universities for ordinary citizens like me to learn about some of these basic but extremely important bits of information? Instead of filling our airwaves and print newspapers with so many trivialities, can’t media outlets help educate the citizenry a bit more on these substantive matters?

Media bosses would perhaps say that because they operate in a for-profit universe, they have to serve up what their consumers demand. That would be a fair point. The truth is that we, the ordinary citizens, are the main problem. Nowadays, if something is not entertaining, we are not interested in it. Any discussions about our international trading relationships with the rest of the world would be considered too boring and would put most of us to sleep. Even with that, the media shouldn’t be left off the hook.

The Constitution granted the press an extraordinary privilege: the independence to write and speak freely without fear of censorship or punishment by the government. The Founding Fathers bestowed that license because of the critical role they expected the media to play in our society. As Brooks correctly says, it is the duty of the press to help direct national discourse onto important subjects.

There are urgent repair works that need to be done in today’s broken America. The nation needs its press to quickly regain the public’s trust and return to its traditional role as a shepherd of information. Extreme partisanship and sensationalism have done too much damage not only to the country, but to journalism as a profession.