.
Fifty-five percent of Democrats do trust the mass media
(radio, newspapers, and television), while just thirty-two percent of
Republicans, and thirty-three percent of Independents trust the media,
according to the latest Gallup
poll.
Two things are clear from the latest Gallup results. I guess we have to stop calling it the Main Street or Lame Street media
since well below half of Americans trust it, and Democrats are more gullible
since they are the last demographic still trusting the media.
There is no surprise in the numbers since the media has
become the advocate for polarizing society, and long ago started moving in the
direction of manufacturing news as opposed to reporting the news.
Today money and greed drive the competition between news
sources rather than quality and fairness, and since the advent of the Internet
more and more news stories come from cyber space than old fashion reporting.
The result is truth is no longer a necessary goal, plagiarism
is an acceptable shortcut, and being objective is just plain stupid. What a shame.
It seems we as a society apply the same twisted standards to
content for mass media beyond the news. When
it comes to shows, or "content" to the politically correct, vulgar is
kosher, more vulgar is kosherer, and downright disgusting vulgarity is
kosherest.
If a television censor from the 1950's came back today, they
would think the forces of Sodom and Gomorra had
overrun America
and that we finally achieved moral bankruptcy.
Demons would be ruling the land.
Then again, there might be some truth to the proposition.
The disintegration of faith in our institutions has been
accelerating throughout the Obama presidency and today, with the unraveling of
the American foreign policy throughout the world, the people are showing their
disgust.
The policy of accommodation of all those forces in the world
hating America, jealous of America, or tired of hearing about America as
advocated by the Obama Administration and the major players under Obama like
Hillary Clinton is taking a toll.
Even Obama's former Secretary of State Clinton is beginning
to crack under the pressure of reality as she is distancing herself more and
more every day from her former boss and his failed policies, policies that she
developed and championed.
Gallup
Politics
September 28, 2015
Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Historical Low
by Rebecca Riffkin
Story Highlights
- Four in 10 Americans trust the mass media
- Ties 2014 and 2012 for the lowest trust level in Gallup's trend
- Younger Americans less likely than older to trust the media
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Four in 10 Americans say
they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust and
confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.
This ties the historical lows on this measure set in 2014 and 2012. Prior to
2004, slight majorities of Americans said they trusted the mass media, such as
newspapers, TV and radio.
Americans' confidence in the media has
slowly eroded from a high of 55% in 1998 and 1999. Since 2007, the majority of
Americans have had little or no trust in the mass media. Trust has typically
dipped in election years, including 2004, 2008, 2012 and last year. However, 2015 is not a major
election year.
This decline follows the same trajectory as
Americans' confidence in many institutions and their declining trust
in the federal government's ability to handle domestic and international problems
over the same time period.
Trust in the Mass Media Has Fallen
More Sharply Among Those Younger Than 50
Trust in the media continues to be
significantly lower among Americans aged 18 to 49 than among those 50 and
older, continuing a pattern evident since 2012. Prior to 2012, these groups'
trust levels were more similar, with a few exceptions between 2005 and 2008.
Trust Among Democrats Remains Low,
but Higher Than Among Republicans
For more than a decade, Republicans and
independents have been significantly less likely than Democrats to trust the
media. This pattern continues in the latest survey. In 2014, Gallup found that trust among Democrats fell
to a 14-year low of 54%, and this figure is essentially unchanged at 55% this
year. While more Democrats than Republicans continue to say they trust the
media, the percentage of Republicans who report that they trust the mass media
increased slightly this year, from 27% to 32%. This increase was offset,
however, by a decrease in independents reporting trust, from 38% to 33%.
Bottom Line
Americans' trust level in the media has
drifted downward over the past decade. The same forces behind the drop in trust
in government more generally, as well confidence in many U.S. institutions,
may also be at work with the media. But some of the loss in trust may have been
self-inflicted. Major venerable news organizations have been caught making
serious mistakes in the past several years, including the scandal involving
former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams in 2015 that some of his
firsthand accounts of news events had been exaggerated or
"misremembered."
Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Survey Methods
Results for this Gallup poll are based on
telephone interviews conducted Sept. 9-13, 2015, with a random sample of 1,025
adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of
Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin
of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported
margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.
Each sample of national adults includes a
minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with
additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular
telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.
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