Perhaps no institution has been hit as hard as the Fourth Estate, with a true crisis of confidence occurring over the last decade of “fake news”. According to Gallup, roughly 7 in 10 Americans trusted the mainstream media in the 1970s, when Spielberg made Close Encounters. By 2025, fewer than 3 in 10 did so, a record low according to the polls. But Spielberg, who also made The Post, a 2017 film that positioned journalists as heroes in the Watergate era, still seems to believe in its power. Television producers play an essential role in Discovery Day, exposing the truth about alien life on film.
