Posted on 09/07/2021 5:23:14 PM PDT by blam
We have often discussed the increasing bias and advocacy in major media in the United States. While cable networks have long catered to political audiences on the left or right, mainstream newspapers and networks now openly frame news to fit a political narrative. With the exception of Fox and a couple of other smaller news outlets, that slant is heavily to the left. What is most striking about this universal shift toward advocacy journalism (including at journalism schools) is that there is no evidence that it is a sustainable approach for the media as an industry. While outfits like NPR allow reporters to actually participate in protests and the New York Times sheds conservative opinions, the new poll shows a sharp and worrisome division in trust in the media. Not surprisingly given the heavy slant of American media, Democrats are largely happy with and trusting of the media. Conversely, Republicans and independents are not. The question is whether the mainstream media can survive and flourish by writing off over half of the country.
The new study from the non-partisan Pew Research Center shows a massive decline in trust among Republicans. Five years ago, 70 percent of Republicans said they had at least some trust in national news organizations. In 2021, that trust is down to just 35 percent.
Conversely, and not surprisingly, 78 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the media. When you just ask liberal Democrats, it jumps to 83 percent.
For those looking for echo-journalism that reaffirms their assumptions, liberals are more likely to realize such confirmation bias on networks and cable programs. For conservatives and others (see below), they are largely limited to looking to Fox News and a couple other sites to get the other side of stories. This has worked incredibly well for Fox which has rivaled the national networks in some time slots. However, it is not good in the long run for American media, which is jettisoning much of the country in its coverage. We need healthy and multiple news outlets to give citizens a reliable and trusted body of journalism.
The question is whether news programs can sustain themselves by effectively writing off half of the country.
It will require a higher percentage of liberals and Democrats reading and watching these siloed programs.
That does not appear to be the case. Fox News remains the most dominant cable network. (For full disclosure, I appear as a legal analyst on Fox). The recent numbers are staggering.
Fox News Channel (FNC) was rated as holding 94 of the top 100 live telecasts on all of cable TV in August. Fox’s average prime-time audience (2.5 million) is now routinely double MSNBC’s (1.229 million) and triple CNN’s (819,000). In “the demo” of viewers under 55, Fox is also beating the other networks. Thirteen of the top 14 cable-news shows were on FNC.
CNN has dropped in “trust” while Fox has risen. Moreover, CNN has lost 68 percent of its viewership. While all news outfits are down from the heady days of the impeachments and elections, this is a nose-bleed of a drop for any new organization. I still have friends working at CNN and I worked with the network for decades. We need a strong array of news outlets, including different views of stories on opinion programs. This is an industry wide crisis of trust. This poll is bad news for the industry which is based first and foremost on trust.
Moreover, the Pew Research Center released a journalism project entitled How Americans Navigated the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review that surprised many in showing that more Democrats were watching Fox than assumed by most commentators. As Forbes reported, “the Fox News viewership actually consists of more than just Trump devotees — that, in fact, there are more Democrats on a regular basis watching Fox than you might expect.”
I have been a columnist for three decades and I have worked for NBC, MSNBC, CBS, BBC, and Fox as a legal analyst. I have watched with increasing alarm as the media has openly embraced advocacy journalism even in mainstream news reporting. At the same time, we have witnessed the drop in viewership and readership in media outlets overall. Clearly, part of this trend is due to the rise of digital sources and the impact of the Internet. However, fewer people trust the media and the effect of the bias on many programs is to reduce the population of news consumers to roughly half. While national media has always had a liberal slant, the bias is now extreme, obvious, and consistent across platforms. The result is like operating in a country with half of our population by design.
The embrace of advocacy journalism has worked on an individual level for journalists and editors to protect their own positions. However, it could be killing the profession, particularly among non-cable outlets. The fact is that people have become used to echo journalism and it is not likely to change in cable programming (which has always been heavily opinion based in the evenings). Yet, newspapers and outlets like NPR are now openly and consistently biased in coverage from avoiding coverage of some stories to soft-peddling other stories. While NPR remains a massive news organization, it has also experienced declining numbers.
Cable networks will continue to feature more opinion-based news. However, it is the extent of the bias that has led to a stampede of viewers. Viewers now face virtual blackouts of news like the Hunter Biden laptop story on both cable and network shows. At the same time, social media companies are actively banning opposing views on major news stories. That leaves conservative, independent, and just inquisitive viewers with few options for news. Yet, the alienation from much of the country leaves most media outlets dividing up a smaller and smaller pie of news consumers. The new poll suggests that this is not enough to sustain many of our media platforms which may have to return to the center or face starvation on the edges.
As a law professor, I am particularly concerned that the drop in trust will impact our political system. People simply no longer believe what is being reported on sites like NPR or NYT. The result is that it is more difficult to identify what is false or unsupported.
I have worked in the media for almost three decades and, for the first time, I am uncertain of the future for American media for the next decade if these trends continue. At some point, the media will have to recognize that journalism means little if fewer and fewer people want to read it or watch it.
Of course they can. There’s always some leftist billionaire ready to fund them, regardless of profitability.
Half? It’s a Leftist lie, perpetuated for decades, that half of the country was Leftist. They want people to believe their numbers are that high.
This isn’t exactly new - yet the media doesn’t seem to be suffering much.
The circulation of “The Arizona Republic” has dropped from 600,000 to 80,000 over the last few years (Phoenix metro area, 4 million+), and yet it’s still around, and with no near daily competitor.
The lefty media will survive, but the influence of the traditional powers should continue to wane.
Since most of America either has Cable, Satellite, or Internet TV, and the channels all get put into the basic packages, they still get plenty of money. Doesn’t matter.
Hey, "professor", if people don't believe NPR or NYT, that is a step in the right direction for identifying what is "false or unsupported."
Are not law professors supposed to be analytical? What you said is, if not a full-blown non sequitur, then at a minimum unsupported by the underlying proposition.
I quit paying attention to all major media twenty years ago. The only “news” I watch is local TV, and that mostly for the weather reports.
They are funded by the Oligarchy now... they don’t need viewership to be relevant...they just need to suck up all the oxygen and make sure big stories, like VP sons with child porn don’t get covered.
Unlike the past they don’t need to make a profit or even have an audience. Mega-rich owners dont care about making money, just about getting the leftist narrative out. Besides, they can just write off any money they lose.
They havent been doing so well as they keep going more and more overt libtard bias. Media companies are so low on the earnings and profit tracks, have been shuttered, have reduced publications, have been sold off for bottom bin prices, laid off a heck of a lot of liberal shills now serving you coffee...
Not doing very well across the board.
ping
The politicians all make speeches, while the newsmen all take notes. Then they exaggerate the issues, and shove them down our throats.
~Larry Norman
Mainstream media is like most HR departments. Irrelevant, unhelpful useless and only existing because of Federal mandates and funded by the producers of the company. Much like the HR department if mainstream media left tomorrow profitability would improve along with morale.
Its amazing some people still think that Fox News actually matters anymore. When they failed to defend the electoral process and chose silence over investigative journalism they lost all claim to be trusted.
The time has passed for people to watch cable news or listen to talk radio and vent about how bad Sleepy Ol’ Joe Biden is. When people get all upset that the forensic audits aren’t going fast enough or nothing ever seems to change within a couple news cycles they should look in the mirror.
How many politicians have you called to tell them you will work for their defeat if they don’t support voting audits? How many news organizations have you called to tell them you are using social media to boycott their advertisers because they are not reporting the real news? How many public events or town halls have you attended to get behind the Nov 3 movement?
As Steve Bannon says everyday, “If you are coming here for talk or complaining about how bad things are you are in the wrong place. What we need now is action, action, action”.
Yellow journalism and yellow press are American terms for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate, well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.
What’s old becomes new again.
CNN is ATT - telecom
*NBC are Comcast - telecom
Telecom should not control the damn news — period!
I am the only person on my block who takes the Denver Post. I do that for the sports and out of force of habit. It is a tiny fraction of the size it was during the newspaper war with the Rocky Mountain News.
We can only be grateful that Facebook, Titter, google and other left-wing platforms wouldn't think of such a thing!
.. and confiscated tax money.
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