Trust in media keeps on slipping (Only 36% of Americans think news media gets the facts straight!)

USA TODAY ^ | May 28, 2003 | Peter Johnson

[Timesink]

Public confidence in the media, already low, continues to slip. Only 36%, among the lowest in years, believe news organizations get the facts straight, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows.

Trust in the media has dropped from 54% in mid-1989 -- about the time of the fall of communism -- to a low of 32% in December 2000, during the post-election confusion over George W. Bush and Al Gore.

[Timesink]

Low marks for the media reflect a larger societal trend today, says Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University journalism professor: ''I think you'll find almost all institutions declining in popular repute.''

They STILL don't get it!!!!

[Timesink]

Special ping because when you get right down to it, they're ALL Jayson Blairs to one extent or another. (See Todd Gitlin's pathetic, laughable spin in the top post!)

Schadenfreude

This is the New York Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.

[trebb]

Maybe they should have worded the poll to allow people to choose "The commie media lies."

[E.G.C.]

Here are my thoughts.

You're right, Tinesink. They still don't get it.

The reason public confidence in the media is slipping is because people are getting sick and tired of all the Democrat butt-kissing, Republican basking B.S. and C.F. that passes as news on CNN and the big three.

These news organizations are continuing to lose audience while Fox News and Newstalk Radio are contiuning to gain.

So what solution is proposed by none other than the President of CNN? "Immediate Action".

And what "Immediate Action" do you suppose he is recommending? Well, I'll let you figure it out. I'll give you a hint. It has to do with his palsie-walsies in the Washington bureaucacy who are Democrats.
Regards.

[TheGeezer]

I designed a control system for storm/civil defense sirens (that controls about 120 sirens at last count, I think), and every time there's a story in the press about the sirens, something substantively and factually WRONG is reported. What gets me is that the same error will pop up in multiple sources, e.g., a newspaper and a TV flurb (A flurb is a flubbed blurb).

Every person is an expert about something, and if you ask anyone about whether or not they've ever seen or heard errors in the news about something in their area of expertise, you'll generally get a "YES!"

Journalists pretty much suck swamp gas and spew toxic waste.

[Conspiracy Guy]

36%! Who are those people?

[theDentist]

Low marks for the media reflect a larger societal trend today, says Todd Gitlin

Blaming the messenger.

[Savage Beast]

"36%, among the lowest in years, believe news organizations get the facts straight"

Hold it! Do you mean to tell me that 36% of the population think these people get the facts straight?!??

"Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University journalism professor: 'I think you'll find almost all institutions declining in popular repute.'"

How's that for sticking your head in the sand?

[Savage Beast]

"36%, among the lowest in years, believe news organizations get the facts straight"

Hold it! Do you mean to tell me that 36% of the population think these people get the facts straight?!??

[bert]

A cancer victim is shocked and then denies the condition. I think the man is in denial. Imagine getting up in the morning knowing your life is a lie and that you are a total failure. A Columbia university J prof teaches the Old Gray Whore is the standard........ how do you spin that away?

Cogito, ergo FReepum

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[bert]

....Who are those people?....

There are 50%+ who don't vote. The 36% are probably part of the 50% and not only do they not vote, they don't read either. The great mass of nons gets polled too.

[randog]

36%! Who are those people?

Whenever I see a stat hovering around 25% I think "liberals".

Low marks for the media reflect a larger societal trend today, says Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University journalism professor: ''I think you'll find almost all liberal institutions declining in popular repute.''

[Fintan]

Of course, in the leftist mind, this means 64% of us are idiots.

[Copernicus]

''This is a cynical time,'' Gitlin says. ''People don't need a lot of reason to become disabused of institutions.''

Show me an institution untouched by corrupt liberal cronyism and I'll show you an institution with public trust intact.

Red Cross? Nope. Higher Education? Nope. Elementary Education? Nope. Greenpeace? Nope.

Best regards,

[rightazrain]

USA Today's article: The fox guarding the henhouse.

[OpusatFR]

Be happy they don't! The longer the matrix is blind to the fact that people get their news and information from sources outside the matrix, the longer we will be able to access that information.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I wonder what % believe polls.

[Timesink]

Every person is an expert about something, and if you ask anyone about whether or not they've ever seen or heard errors in the news about something in their area of expertise, you'll generally get a "YES!"

This is the reason news organizations used to have "beats"! If a guy covers nothing but, say, electronics (or the police or health or [insert subject here], he's generally going to know what he's talking about. Instead, today's reporters are, for the most part, simply randomly assigned to a different story every day, none of which have anything to do with each other. So they get a quick 1-hour immersion course in the subject they're covering today, usually courtesy of the poor guy they called for an interview, learn just enough to be dangerous, and screw up the facts in the story they right. And then they never cover that subject again.

After The Times first published that gigantic, four-page-long correction list of all the lies and distortions Jayson Blair printed, someone asked what I think is the most relevant question yet posed about this whole media meltdown: "How come Jayson Blair screwed over so many dozens, if not hundreds, of people, making up quotes they didn't say, describing them as what they are not in the slightest, and yet not one of them ever called The Times to complain?" The answer is simple: The public fully expects the news media to get it wrong every time, either intentionally or through sheer ignorance. Why complain about something not being true when we all know that falsehoods are the news media's standard?

[Conspiracy Guy]

Polls and Media are watched by me with a very skeptical eye.

[Timesink]

Argh! "screw up the facts in the story they right" = WRITE, not RIGHT. Dammit.