A poll from the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center has found that a majority of Americans are extremely worried or very concerned about bias in the media and the reporting of false or misleading information. Only 48% of Republicans and 34% of independents still receive their news from national news outlets and expressed the greatest trust of the media.
The poll shows that 47% of Americans have serious concern that news outlets would report information that has not been confirmed or verified, and 44% worry that accurate information will be presented in a way that favors one side or another.
For years, the journalists have sawed on the branch upon which they are sitting. Even National Public Radio, which receives federal funding, is unrepentant in the face of criticism over its overt political bias.
Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University journalism professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones declared recently that “all journalism is activism.” Advocacy journalism is all the rage in journalism schools and on major media platforms.
A recent series of interviews with over 75 media leaders by Leonard Downie Jr., former Washington Post executive editor, and Andrew Heyward, former CBS News president, reaffirmed this shift. As Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, stated: “Objectivity has got to go.”
But that objective seems to depend heavily upon what ideology you are advocating.
The result is that the mainstream media is increasingly speaking to itself and a dwindling number of viewers and readers. NPR is again a good example.
NPR’s audience has been declining. Indeed, that trend has been most pronounced since 2017. The company has also reported falling advertising revenue and, like many outlets, has made deep staff cuts to deal with budget shortfalls.
Yet, while tacking aggressively to the left and openly supporting narratives (including some false stories) from Democratic sources, NPR and its allies still expect citizens to subsidize its work. That includes roughly half of the country with viewpoints now effectively banished from its airwaves.
The result is that about half of Americans rely on social media for their primary source of news. That is why it is not surprising that the censorship of social media has been a priority among many liberal groups. The effort is to eliminate sources of information and regulate what citizens see and read.
Despite this effort, the trend is likely to continue. Recently at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the host Colin Jost remarked how he could not believe the race was tied despite all of the bad coverage of Trump. At events like the dinner, there is disbelief that citizens are not just following their narrative and shaping of the news. The fact is that many are no longer listening or watching. The MSM is “playing to the house,” not to the public at large.
So we are left with the variation of a common Zen-like question: if the media reports and no one is listening, does it still make a sound?
The Republicans have spend over a decade relentlessly attacking the news media. And straight out gaslighted the public about covid and Trump. This poll is indicative of the fact that the Republicans have successfully hoodwinked the public. It speaks very badly on the Republicans, moderately badly on the public, and says nothing about the regular media.
Sammy – Do you ever notice how cartoonishly small Morning Joe’s mouth is compared to the rest of his head? Never trust a talking head on TV whose mouth is way too small for their head.
Ever hear the Don Henley song “Dirty Laundry?”
We have known about the news business and their quest for ratings since the 80s.
MSM has taken it to a new level of absurd. Republicans did not have to attack MSM. MSM did it to themselves.
“POLL: MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DISTRUST IN THE MEDIA”
Well Garsh, Sha-Zam, Gall-lee, Woo-Dah, Bell-leave.
Margot Ballhere said: “Well Garsh, Sha-Zam, Gall-lee, Woo-Dah, Bell-leave.”
Yeah. My first inclination for a response to this column was a simple “No s***, Sherlock!”
I used to think that going to local media was a reasonable alternative to the mainstream media. But local media, for years, had independent reporters in Washington D.C and reported all of the national News from D.C. through those reporters. The problem is that those reporters have disappeared. Now the national news is reported straight from Washington D.C. or New York by the same National Media reporters that you see on ABC, NBC, and CBS and it is introduced by the local station as “their” national news. The local newspapers were bought by Gannet and now you get a distilled version of USA Today in your paper. We once had a local paper that, although not perfect, kept you up to date on local happenings, events and such. Now you get a very brief local amount of news, and a lot of news from Indianapolis, which is 70-80 miles away (where the main paper is also Gannet) and an even more distilled version of USA Today news. So you get a greater and greater number of filters before you get the news.
The only thing that is really useful is the internet. The problem is that Amazon and Google have such a strangle hold on internet services and servers that they block your ability to survive and demonetize you if you stray from the party line.
If you are going to compete, you need the server farms, robust security and growth of streaming services, independent of the left wing corporate world. If Fox or someone like Fox wanted to give a starving audience some relief or alternatives, looking for reasonable news, they would build this structure and cast off from the New York and DC centric news universe. The thing is that even Fox still thinks New York is the center of the world and that has not been true for years.
The technology is there, but you need investors, and real leaders and the mainstream media is vulnerable right now with their viewership in the tank. Just imagine what you could build.
The jour-no-lists have become quite skilled at lying in ways calculated to fool many people. They don’t need everyone to trust them they need only 50%+ 1 to believe what they spew yo be successful at promoting the narrative.
These people aren’t stupid. They realize that much of what they actively promote as “truth” is wrong or will be proven wrong but they don’t care as they believe, like most fanatics, that the ends justify the means and the end is the destruction of America as currently existing.
They truly are the enemies of the people.
“. . . report information that has not been confirmed or verified . . .”
But it has been confirmed and verified.
The NYT reports it. USA Today runs with it. Yahoo News repeats it. WaPo expands on it. The AP links to it. The NYT cites the AP.
(I wish that were a joke.)
I can’t believe the numbers aren’t far worse.
Just seen Dandy Rather on CBS pause and say journalism is doing just fine. What a fool. NPR gets money from taxpayers and cant keep in the middle. CBC in Canada has been a 30 year joke. Hopefully soon funding will end.
Any media with an obvious bias is ripe for manipulation by infowarriors who have an axe to grind. Getting free media is the game of activists and political-freaks like MTG. Trump taught them how to manipulate their way on to the air, with snappy, manufactured conflict theatrics. I think his breakthrough was “Is Obama really a U.S. citizen?” Trump was surprised and delighted at the resonance to an artful lie. Something had changed because 10 years earlier, that type of obvious falsehood would never have gotten off the ground — it was social media. Now, people with no particular interest in facts and truth were able to gather online at their favorite watering holes — places where no editor or producer was gatekeeping. The freedom to deceive oneself and others gave a real taste of power to those who ethical journalism had ignored for centuries.
Actually, JT’s piece would be much more interesting if he traced the audience’s shift to more trustworthy sources for news and analysis where standards are being upheld…..substack, Common Sense, Matt Taibbi, books, Bill Maher. The part of the audience who feel responsible for the future of America have reshaped their media consumption habits. Those with infotainment addiction syndrome are keeping the unethical media alive.
Now do the Progressives who own CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS and all crazy Progressive Hamas supporters and fake Russian Collusion hoaxers.
. I think his breakthrough was “Is Obama really a U.S. citizen?
There was never a question that Obama’s mother was a US citizen. The question was always what was entered on the Birth Certificate. Which leads to the question of Obama’s application to Occidental college then Columbia. Did he claim to be a foreign citizen? In order to get the grants given to foreign students. Obama went to an elite private High school in Hawaii, So the question was never really what the Birth certificate said, it was always about what Obama claimed. AND who funded this individual education? and why?
Huh, no. There was no question about what President Obama claimed. It was the racists who kept sowing doubt about the president’s legitimacy of citizenship. The whole “birther movement” was about a bunch of racists panicking and bewildered by the fact that he became president. They couldn’t handle it. So they chose to smear his character by peddling conspiracy theories and claims that he was not a citizen and was instead a Muslim who shouldn’t be trusted.
The whole shameful affair is a stain on this country’s reputation.
Okee dokee, you keep on believin’ Mr. Kool Aid drinker.
George is like a cat, desperately trying to cover up his turn of exactly who first raised the citizenship of Obama.
But I repeat. Who paid for Obama’s private highschool, College at tony Occidental college and then the elite Cornell?, and did Obama come into those colleges as a foriegn citizen to get huge govt and college grants?
To bring things to present day. Why is Obama the ONLY President to leave office and then make his home in DC?
Maybe Trump knows something you don’t?
Obama’s records are sealed and locked away from prying eyes.
Nothing to see but for the carefully ‘curated’ information.
No grades, transcripts, no legit records, no nothing.
That’s one way ‘the system’ protects ‘chosen ones.’
Trump also claimed, “they’re spying on my campaign.”
He was right again.
“Those with infotainment addiction syndrome are keeping the unethical media alive.”
Big Pharma has something to do with ‘keeping unethical media alive’ as well.
Pharma pays for nearly all of MSM advertising.
It’s how the big covid lies got pumped into the public.
Anyone still getting any of the ‘CDC recommended’ shots, will likely be dead in five years.
345@yahoo.com said: “Pharma pays for nearly all of MSM advertising.”
Is that accurate? Serious question. Between selecting only ad-free TV entertainment that consists mostly of movies (thereby avoiding network advertising) and using ad-ins in my browser that are >99% effective at bllocking internet ads, I’m nicely insulated form such garbage.
In court they have one swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The media fails routinely on at least one of three.
…”there is disbelief that citizens are not just following their narrative and shaping of the news. The fact is that many are no longer listening or watching.”…
The fact is that it makes you sick (NEWS), like eating nothing but Fast-Food (Super Size Me). The Mind & Soul react to it, reject it, like a bad Mental Abuse Habit (News-Drug Abuse). So People are sobering up, Sobering-up to the facts that is it just plain ‘WRONG’ and not taking the Dose(s) anymore.
My Gen would say: GET REAL!
If “the media” has become a mere propaganda tool, can they still be considered “the media”? If not, “the variation of a common Zen-like question” becomes: ‘if there is no media and no one is listening, does it still make a noise?
This question becomes even more relevant as fellow stooges to the media have no need to listen as they already know what they have to know (thus explaining the massive declines media followers).
I now assume anything NYT, WAPO, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR…does to be a TOTALLY LIE! As they repeatedly are CAUGHT doing just that! I will include DOJ & FBI as well!
Nothing but whores who’ve sold their souls for some cheap studio makeup and a glamour shot billboard on the local interstate.
I think a better analogy is girls in middle School. They will do anything to get recognized by the cool girls and invited to their lunch table, they will faint if they get invited to the cool girl party.
That is the media, desperate to get validated by the cool libs in DC. Yes they will gladly spread their legs for the Harvey Wienstiens of DC and NYC. The media has zero self worth and need stroked every hour. To get the strokes the have to lie.
“Totally”
As in so many other things the “free market” will take care of this long term. The distrust people have in the media is reducing readership, revenues, and advertising. The internet and its unbridled flare for chicanery and honesty- both at the same time, available instantly upon request, and free – has replaced the newspapers and network news agencies our parents and grandparents relied on for news of the day. Today’s print media is little more than a concierge source of affirming information for comforting reader biases. PT Barnum charged people a nickel to enter a tent to see a horse with a tail where its head should be. They saw a horse turned around in its stall when they got in. There are only so many tricks you can pull on people before they and you run out of nickels.
JJC said: “the “free market” will take care of this long term”
You and John Say seem to have absolute faith that the free market can prevail in spite of any and all encumbrance placed upon it by an authorative state, without any kind of insurrection or rebellion to impair that process. I am not so saguine, and I think history supports my outlook more strongly than it does your position. I suppose it depends on your definitaion of “long term”, but imo that is meaningless if it isn’t within the span of a single human lifetime. China has been governed by anti-market communists since the year I was born, and I will be 75 shortly. The only item I see in favor of your proposition is that the US has more of a tradition of a free market (although not as much as many might suppose) than most of those other nations, but I am reluctant to put the same absolute faith in that difference. I certainly hope you are more correct than am I.
“ As in so many other things the “free market” will take care of this long term.”
No it won’t. That will never materialize. Not when you have just 6 companies who own all the media in the country. In 1983 that number was 50. When you have a growing set of monopolies and the number of companies that control media keeps shrinking the idea of free markets becomes a farce.
This true in the majority of industries today. Two companies control the majority of the soft drink and bottle water markets. There’s no real competition. Only four companies control the majority of the meat and poultry products sold here.
Monopolies are the antithesis of any free market ideal. Especially when unlimited contributions and campaign donations are allowed. Fox News is just one of several major media outlets owned by one company. The small independent media outlets that survive are easily overwhelmed by the giant corporations dominating and controlling the market.
I bet that professor Turley’s Fox News contract has a strict non-disparagement clause and non-compete clause. Would explain the lack of Fox News criticism.
Fox News does share a large chunk of the blame for the way news media is today. They’ve made more retractions and gotten caught manipulating photos than anyone else.
Did anyone go to jail for the biggest crime in American History…the Russian Hoax attempt to overthrow Trump and the republicans?
Answer No!
Democrats shower money on themselves…while keeping their plantation FAILED….so they can SHOWER even more! Just ask the cops making $500k, or those public workers retiring on $300k pensions!
how about the DOJ, FBI, etc?
I meet smart people…who BACK every Fascist Goose Step Democrats take!
The Republican Party now rubber stamps the spending on a FASCIST STATE!
Time to Defund the Democrats….end Federal Aid to cities, states, colleges and non-profits. Let Democrats be punished for failure…instead of REWARDING THEM!
Why should we trust propaganda? If there is a building collapse, a fire, an event, I will turn on a larger news broadcast to get the Who, What, When, Where and possibly Why, then I turn it off and check head lines from time to time.
The once great news organizations have not captured the younger crowd and seem content to feed their viewers a comfortable, biased point of view. I cannot stand watching a WH “news” briefing as most of it is pure B.S.
Now, with dwindling audiences why bother quoting any of their remaining pundits? They are insignificant. It is the same with actors, actresses and ball players. Why do I care what you have to say? If I wanted the opinion of someone who can catch a ball, I would ask my dog.
It is sad, really.
I will turn on a larger news broadcast to get the Who, What, When, Where and possibly Why
20 years ago I taught my children to look for the source of the information being presented If there is no named source, there is no information.
Time has only made that simple step more important. And, “sources close to the story” means they are just pushing the medias agenda.
Great approach!
Anyone with any degree of common sense and reasoning would not trust MSM.
Support independent media like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Sharyl Attkisson, The Free Press and many others.
Dont cancel NPR. Just dont listen.
Upstate, I agree with you about 99% of the time, but I disagree with you about not canceling NPR. We pay for NPR and we are shut out of their programming and news “reporting”. The left tries to cancel Fox News and every person on their network and Fox is not tax payer funded.
I agree with not listening (I always champion just changing the channel or not paying to read the outlet as opposed to trying to shut them down) but when you use my money to support harming my country I have the right to try to have it stopped.
Keep up the good work and I am sure I will agree with 99 out of your next 100 comments.
No legitimate basis for not eliminating all tax support for NPR.
If eliminating the tax support to NPR causes it to fold, then effectively that is the same as the fate of any other radio media where potential audiences “Just dont listen”. Why should NPR be spared such a fate? Just because it is on-the-dole?
UpstateFarmer said: “Support independent media like Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Sharyl Attkisson, The Free Press and many others.”
I do read and support those folks. At the same time I think it is important to keep in mind that they do not do old school “5W” news reporting either, that discipline has entirely vanished. They do give rational (for the most part) opinions based on objectively verifiable facts, and that is invaluable.
The problem is the News Orginazations and reporters do not believe it, they are only concerned what their fellow reporters and Washington DC Elite think, along with other Elite. Rather than correct their declining viewers and listeners, they even get worse or more Woke, example NPR/CNN. MSNBC is simply the DEM/Woke News network, the others are not far behind. Washington Post/NY Times are stooges for the CIA/DEM’s etc.
“if the media reports and no one is listening, does it still make a noise?”
No, only a very, very foul smell.