60 percent of Americans don’t trust their mass media - poll

[UpInArms]

Source: Reuters

A new Gallup poll has found that six in 10 Americans say that their trust in mass media ranges from “not very much” to “none at all.” Those surveyed were asked about the media reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly.

Just 33 percent said they had a “fair amount” of trust in mass media such as newspapers, TV and radio, and only 7 percent had a “great deal” of trust and confidence that the mass media reports the news, according to a Gallup poll released this week.

<snip>

“Americans' trust level in the media has drifted downward over the past decade…Some of the loss in trust may have been self-inflicted,” wrote Rebecca Riffkin, a Gallup analyst, in a statement.

<snip>

Other mass media scandals that violated public trust include the inaccuracy of stories on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, such as those that Judith Miller wrote for The New York Times in the lead-up to Iraq war. Jayson Blair, also of the NY Times, plagiarized and fabricated facts in at least 36 articles, something that led to his firing and to the resignation of an editor and manager at the newspaper. There were also revelations in 2003 that the Bush administration paid columnists to promote its policies.

Read more: http://www.rt.com/usa/317142-americans-lack-trust-media/

[Liberalagogo]

1. I don't trust this poll.

<------------------------------------------------------------------------

[NorthCarolina]

2. 60% seems low to me.

I would have guessed the number to be more like 70%.

[floriduck]

12. Exactly.

[avebury]

17. Agreed! nt

[trillion]

25. Agreed. Who the heck is that 7% that tusts them!

[GreatGazoo]

29. per Gallup...

Dems have more trust than GOP and Indies which seems odd at first glance but for the cable news producers it means that RWers are harder to please hence the RW slant.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/176042/trust-mass-media-returns-time-low.aspx

[Blasphemer]

30. At LEAST 70%

If they are weary of the corporate influence on politicians, the same applies to the media.

[ffr]

3. The generic media, yes, we don't trust

But many news sources can be trusted. It's just the constant barrage of misinformation from RWNJ TV & radio that's poisoning the airwaves, also more prevalent over the past 10 years. Take them out of the equation and the "trust" factor jumps substantially.

[newthinking]

22. "Narrative" has spread far past right wing media. Most Mass media is narrative based now and

not always truthful.

This is due to a number of factors: Real Journalism is expensive and not always "eye catching"
Marketing: Emotionalizing stories and creating controversy makes $$$$
Premade (Government produced, special interest) "news" is cheap and abundant.
Government and financial interests constantly pressure media what to and not report.
Financial interests. Class interests.

We are only just waking up to the fact that our media is far more manipulated than most of us thought possible for a supposed media made up of more than a few players.

[mrdmk]

24. The News director's manta is, 'If it bleeds, it leads!'

Last edited Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:42 AM - Edit history (1)

The real killer is the so-called, 'he said, she said.' The climate debates is a good example, the media will put two on the stage; One person will be dry and clinical in the presentation, the other person will be a liar who will not shut-up for two seconds. Our news media is like day time program with a judge with two parties who cannot find their way off of stupid.

[PATRICK]

4. A Gallup analyst

"may have been self-inflicted". That kind of understated recognition of the baldly obvious is part of the problem. Not just isolated scandals but whole bent or disappeared critical issues overall colliding with reality. Online and texting people can share their puzzlement over the media slant and what reality and their gut tell them, not just sharing scripted narratives and memes that have pushed corporate media propaganda beyond the Twilight Zone. When people financially suffer and the blood they are offered is their own they might just turn on the bully pulpits.

This is the unstable situation created by the very bent of the media in insanely be cast as liberal in order to trick liberals and keep right wingers in bogeyman mode. Eventually both strategies could melt down as now with nutcases clinging only to Fox only if they are dumb enough to be fooled by anything and liberals finally leaving or getting tossed from the digging in corporate agenda.

No I don't watch the news or subscribe to a paper or trust the meager radio reports from PBS outside of the weather, maybe.

Nor does any of the esteemed Fourth estate go to the mat for the truth by championing even a discussion for actual change or going after those criminally responsible. Instead it is all fear, victimology rites, coping with injustice, not picking sides, giving extraordinary time to demagogues and destroyers. Even the supposedly neutral hunger for selling sensationalism on an EEO basis seems bent to me. Nobody feels the corporate media is in their corner except to placate or feed. Entertainment can be better found elsewhere, and truth, better found almost anyplace else. Consumers using adblock as a concept has been raised against the corporate infomercial that is the so-called MSM.

[erronis]

16. +1. Couldn't have said it any better. Well, not even close to as good...

[librechik]

27. Can't tell you how hard we struggled at my tv news organization

to get editorial management to allow us to cover cold facts like voter suppression and several other things including lies on Iraq. They just ignored us, with a he-said-she-said copout.

There are good people trying to be good journalists. There are gatekeepers at every outlet, turning them away for financial and political reasons.

Free press is more or less dead in this country. For a long time.

[Sunlei]

5. "in 2003 that the Bush administration paid columnists to promote its policies" I think it's 100%

[mountain grammy]

6. Good, it should be 100%.

Nothing to trust from the corporate, ratings driven, commercial media.

[Fred Sanders]

7. Lied to on Iraq, lied to about who destroyed the economy, then lied to on Ebola, lied to about

ACORN, lied to about death panels, and birtherism and socialism, now Egazhi and Emailgazhi, etc. etc.....the fascist American corporate media joined at the hip with the GOP is too afraid that telling the truth will mean their own demise, the demise of the GOP and the end of all that sweet, sweet, campaign cash everyone is furiously raising to shower on them in 2016.

The mass media is in survival mode, so of course they will lie to live, it is only natural, and only natural that they are not to be trusted.....trust is earned.

[Stallion]

8. Rasmussen and Gallup Should Poll Americans on How Much They Trust Polls

not very much-and especially NOT Rasmussen and Gallup

[question everything]

9. At least, not network TV

They take a topic and stick with it to death. CNN. One has to read the moving tape to find out that other things happen.

We subscribe to print newspapers and on occasions I notice something and wonder why no one has mentioned it, seeing that CNN and MSNBC are on 24 hours.

[Corruption Inc]

10. The U.S. is ranked 49th in the World Press Freedom Index

Anyone who believes our 24/7 propaganda media is sadly deluded.

https://index.rsf.org/#!/

[pampango]

14. Great point. Of course the source of the OP comes from Russia which is #152 on the list

in terms of press freedom.

It is noteworthy that the Scandinavian countries are the top 5 in the world for press freedom. Not only world class income equality but world class press freedom. It can be done.

[hibbing]

11. I bet most think it is also "liberal"

After decades of cowering the corporate media by calling them liberal, I am sure many people think that.

Peace

[LiberalLovinLug]

18. Good point

A lot of this distrust has to do with on one side, The Daily Show, SNL, Colbert, etc.. lampooning Fox News. And Media Matters, and other sites online, even DU, discrediting them online. All of which was warranted of course.

But on the other side Fox News on TV, and the multitude of RW hate radio declaring that every other media was the "librul media" and had some ominous secret agenda to promote liberalism and weaken the country in doing so.

So with everyone bashing everyone else, no matter warranted or not, probably gives an overall effect of general distrust.

[SoapBox]

13. Uhhhhh....

Duh!

[malthaussen]

15. I trust them implicitly

I just doubt they tell the truth. Or even work very hard to find it out, in most cases.

Old quote, still applicable today: "I always believe everything I read in the newspapers as this makes them more interesting." (Rose Macaulay)

-- Mal

[turbinetree]

19. Who the owners are............................

http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart


A oldie but goodie reference:


http://www.la.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/47530.php


And another oldie but goodie:

https://antioligarch.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/who-owns-the-tv-networks-by-eustace-mullins/


And when CBS brought a criminal, a war criminal (4865 dead soldiers) on there show three weeks ago with his daughter, and they showed him fishing in Wyoming, then sell and to talk about his new book, just shows what they are all about, everyone one of them.

And then there was a article in the Huffington Post and the Washington Post on how much air time Sanders is getting (8 minutes), its really is disgusting and from this source which I find is credible in my opinion:

http://sputniknews.com/us/20150930/1027750047/Mainstream-Media-Bernie-Blackout.html


I think its 101% or higher-----------people are really sick and tired of ratings game


Honk---------for a political revolution Bernie 2016

[Scruffy1]

20. Onne should never trust any tertiary source.

This includes newspapers, radio, TV, movies, advertisements, blogs and whatever. All you can really say about anything from these sources is that it might be true.

[mhatrw]

21. From 17 years ago

[valerief]

23. What's wrong with people? That number is WAY too low. nt

[merrily]

26. I'm very sorry to learn that 40% of Americans are that dense.

Media could not possibly be more obviously untrustworthy. Does the run up to the Iraq invasion ring a bell?

Need I say that helping sell a war to America involved huge amounts of blood, as well as treasure? And that was only on our side. One million Iraqis displaced in the first year or two alone, and no one even bothered to count their dead and wounded.

If media was willing to shill for that much human devastation.....

[Third Doctor]

28. Yeah that's a bit low

The corporate owned media is next to useless these days. Its either over covering tragedy or ignoring certain issues or its infotainment shit. The infotainment is the worst.