Jeff Bezos recently released an op-ed on why the Washington Post will be refraining from endorsing political candidates and why he believes faith needs to be restored in journalism. At the start of the article, he gives an analogy to illustrate the media's present problem:

Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate.

These statements are easy to understand, but the matters involved are complex. A voting machine can be made to work properly, and newspapers can go to great lengths to verify sources and situations, but as for the second part of Bezos's statements about believing it to be true, well, that's tricky.

How deeply one believes, how long one has believed, how one came to be a believer, and what constitutes the core elements of what one believes are important factors. Moreover, understanding why some choose not to believe is just as important as understanding why some do. Boomers may claim that the news used to be a believable source, while Zoomers, having been raised in the noisy digital age, may never feel like legacy media can be trusted.

It is also worth noting that conflicted feelings about what one believes can emerge at any time and can be influenced by circumstance. For instance, with the holidays drawing near, many children are questioning their belief in Santa and are adjusting their behavior after having not thought about the jolly gift-giver since last December. Similarly, as this election season comes to a close, many adults are questioning their confidence in a two-party system and are re-evaluating the role politics plays in their everyday life.

When it comes to making tough decisions, or understanding that which is hard to believe, we tend to take cues from others and seek to validate our viewpoints, just like children who question their parents after hearing from friends that Santa is not real. And, with this presidential election, many are having a hard time believing the choices we've been given and are looking for guidance as well as reassurance. According to a poll conducted by the American Psychiatric Association, 73 percent of U.S. adults are anxious about the election.