A year ago, Americans were showing their distrust in media
The US ranks last among 46 countries in trust in media
A Poynter article dated 24 June 2021 reports on a Reuters survey that found little trust among Americans when it came to print and broadcast media.
The United States ranks last in media trust — at 29% — among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries, a report released Wednesday found. That’s worse than Poland, worse than the Philippines, worse than Peru. (Finland leads at 65%.)
The annual digital news report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford also found some improvement in trust in nearly all the countries surveyed — probably thanks to COVID-19 coverage — but not in the U.S. where the low rating was flat year to year.
One explanation, though not necessarily the only one, is the extreme political polarization in the U.S. This study, like many others, found extremely high levels of distrust — 75% of those who identify as being on the right thought coverage of their views is unfair.
Local news, both print and broadcast, fared better than national news. However, the findings for struggling local print outlets were not all good.
Interest in local news and willingness to pay for it was not strong. Only 21% in the U.S. said that they pay for news online. Of those who do, 31% said they pay for The New York Times, 24% for The Washington Post and only 23% for the site of a local or regional paper.
The most popular local news topic, by a wide margin (62%), was weather. Staples of local newspaper coverage like politics (33%) and education (16%) lagged. Those surveyed indicated a preference for local broadcast (52%) as a source over newspapers (16%).
(Read more at Poynter)
As of the coronavirus media coverage, surely the shine had to come off from media
Because such a stark difference between reporting on coronavirus and observable reality (as could be seen by driving by hospitals), surely only the lazy and the really gullible continued believing the Democrat narrative.
After this year’s poll, the media starts to catch on
A Gallup poll indicates trust in television and newspapers has dropped to historic lows
Gallup reports that an annual poll of 1,005 respondents found that our trust of television and newspapers has fallen to record lows.
- 16% of Americans have a great deal/quite a lot of confidence in newspapers
- 11% have some the degree of confidence in television news
- Democrats’ confidence low but higher than Republicans’, independents’
Americans’ confidence in two facets of the news media — newspapers and television news — has fallen to all-time low points. Just 16% of U.S. adults now say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers and 11% in television news. Both readings are down five percentage points since last year.
Gallup has tracked Americans’ confidence in newspapers since 1973 and television news since 1993 as part of its annual polling about major U.S. institutions. The latest readings are from a June 1-20 poll that saw declines in confidence ratings for 11 of the 16 institutions measured and no improvements for any.
Television news and newspapers rank nearly at the bottom of that list of institutions, with only Congress garnering less confidence from the public than TV news. While these two news institutions have never earned high confidence ratings, they have fallen in the rankings in recent years.
A majority of Americans have expressed confidence in newspapers only once — in 1979, when 51% did. But there is a wide margin between that and the second-highest readings of 39% in 1973 and 1990. The trend average for newspapers is 30%, well above the latest reading of 16%, which is the first time the measure has fallen below 20%. The percentage of Americans who say they have “very little” or volunteer that they have no confidence is currently the highest on record, at 46%.
Confidence in television news has never been higher than its initial 46% reading in 1993 and has averaged 27%, considerably higher than the current 11%. This is the fourth consecutive year that confidence in TV news is below 20%. And for just the second time in the trend, a majority of Americans, 53%, now say they have very little or no confidence at all in TV news.
(Read more at Gallup)
When their reporting did not line up with observable reality, what did they expect?
When the main stream media focused on stories that only supported their narrative, did they not expect Americans to seek out alternative sources and stop trusting the newspapers / Democrat TV news? When the most recent hire at the TV station reported the latest “surge” of coronavirus (that didn’t pack hospitals that we pass to and from work), did they expect we would just accept their word?
It seems that main stream media’s Katy Tur has started to feign some introspection. Maybe some actual soul searching that involved review of the bias on main stream media shows might have convinced a few of us.
https://twitter.com/PouncerNC_USA/status/1548697805669236739One other thing that might make American news consumers a little less jaded would be if the media stopped covering staged “events” as real news (like where AOC acts like she is being handcuffed at a protest in front of the Supreme Court when no handcuffs were present).
https://twitter.com/beyondreasdoubt/status/1549453298289229827The best part is how AOC exposes her fraud by raising her fist 10 seconds into doing her fake “perp walk.” Not even the most dedicated in the Democrat press can cover for these idiots.
…
Mark 1:1 
I have to say, “Well it’s about time.”
Should anyone bother to check the historical record, then one would be justified in concluding that the American media has NEVER been a trustworthy source of information about anything. And yet, “we the people” who are able to read above the eighth-grade level continue to make newspaper publishers rich beyond imagination by buying their rags and acting as if what they tell us is a missive from heaven. The first politician to realize how powerful the media is as a source of disinformation was, if you can believe this, Thomas Jefferson, who mounted a sleazy campaign against his former boss, George Washington in the gutter press of the day. Jefferson kept that unhappy episode a secret for many years … which must change a thinking man’s perspective of this “this third” president. A pox on him.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow: “The US ranks last among 46 countries in trust in media”
LikeLike