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Trust in the media is at an all-time low, but should it be?

Trust in the media is at an all-time low, but should it be?

PragerU explores

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=256&v=4pzZvMzotMc

No one trusts the media these days and for good reason. Biased reporting, a disproportionate amount of attention exerted towards tearing down conservatives and traditionalism, and supposed fact-based reporting sneakily meshed with opinion all contribute to the growing tension between the American people and the fourth estate.

Faith in reporting is so low, only 37% of “Americans believe news outlets report straight facts”.

Sharyl Attkisson, investigative journalist, host of news program Full Measure, and author of The Smear, joins PrageU to discuss how the state of media has changed and explores the driving factors behind the ‘fake news’ epidemic.

Attkisson discusses three main points:

  1. the distinct lines separating news from opinion have become hopelessly blurred
  2. despite journalists’ personal feelings toward a politician, they have the obligation to treat the individual equally—yet this rarely happens
  3. journalists have become tools of politicians and spin-meisters in order to get something in return, a method known as “transactional journalism”

We’ve covered media bias at length here on LI. From the AP’s trouble reporting the facts to the New York Times admitting they harbor left-leaning bias. So ridiculous has our press corps become, they’ve fact checked a Senator’s porcupine sex reference while ignoring major political scandals. Is it any wonder they’ve lost the faith and trust of the American people?

Long-standing media outlets centered in coastal locals with little to no interaction with the rest of America has only exacerbated the cultural disconnect. Couple that with  upcoming generations groomed to see everything as a political cause, it’s highly likely media will have to hit rock bottom before being afforded the opportunity to rebuild trust with the public it’s seemingly intentionally alienated.

Follow Kemberlee on Twitter @kemberleekaye

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Comments

Ms Kaye, you ask “…but should it be?” Why, you think they should be held in high esteem? The media should be scorned by every American. I’d like to hear your answer to your own question.

It’s actually very easy to identify fake news. If it’s from an alphabet network, it’s fake. If it’s from CNN, not only will it be fake, it will glorify the Clinton’s in some way or another.

Subotai Bahadur | November 6, 2017 at 9:02 pm

«Нет истины в новостях, и нет никаких новостей в правде.»

In English, “There is no truth in the News, and there is no news in Truth.” “News” and “Truth” being the Party newspapers of the Soviet Union.

Our MSM are no less creatures of the Democrat Party and their allies to the Left than Izvestia and Pravda were creatures of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. And our media lust after the creation of a Cheka so they can join.

Given the fact of this, trust in the media is cupidity.

The problem isn’t so much that most of the news is so poorly done. A successful popular government—i.e., one that’s not a sham—requires an independent press. And that we once had.

The colonial-era press was probably worse than today’s, in terms of bogus and hysterical reporting masquerading as news, vile and vituperative editorials, and embarrassingly puerile opinions and editorials. But it was independent of government. That was probably its only virtue … but it was enough.

And that independence is what we don’t have today. Most of today’s press is indistinguishable from a propaganda arm of one political party. This lack of independence is voluntary, but nonetheless real. So we no longer read and hear news partially masked by a high level of noise; all of the “news” and the noise is oriented in one direction only. The noise no longer has an averaging effect; it’s become part of the message or product. And that message is propaganda, slant, spin, and deception.

I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The people foisting this disgraceful rubbish on us show no sign of even realizing that they’re doing anything wrong.

    Insufficiently Sensitive in reply to tom_swift. | November 6, 2017 at 11:24 pm

    The people foisting this disgraceful rubbish on us show no sign of even realizing that they’re doing anything wrong.

    That’s because they’re convinced they’re doing the right thing, by bulldozing public opinion far enough left to ‘elect’ a new regime which will lead us into righteousness by the unaccountable, anti-democratic techniques of progressive government.

    The publicly observed media distress on the election of Trump by the media-scorned deplorables was clear evidence of their culpability with the DNC in the conspiracy to elect Saint Hillary.

The difference between times past and the viciousness of the msm is the net. They can no longer do a Walter Kronkite and get away with it. They can put out their rubbish but an hour later or less, the real story or the complete story is out. For some strange reason, they have not yet recognized this basic fact. They are the little chicken yelling that the sky is falling when we all know the truth.

We would all like to believe that the news business has changed. But it hasn’t. Prior to WWII, newspapers were little more than opinion organs for their owners, and editors. The term yellow journalism comes to mind. During WWII, American newspapers, along with radio, were little more than propaganda organs of the US government.

Following WWII, the news business made a concerted effort to convince its customer base that what was reported was accurate. In other words, it was “news”, not opinion. However, nothing had changed. “News” stories were slanted to support the editorial [policy of the news organ. The media was uniformly against any military action, especially against any communist aggression. It was uniformly anti-Republican and certainly anti-Conservative. The large news organs were all owned and controlled by Progressives. They ignored the cavorting of JFK. They ignored the corruption of the LBJ years. They demonized Nixon from the get-go. They worked against Reagan, but he was just too powerful a moderate for them to really affect. They marginalized Bush 41. They forgave Clinton his peccadilloes. The excoriated Bush 43. They lionized BHO and ignored his illegal and unconstitutional activities. And, their behavior toward DJT is evident. The Trump win destroyed the confidence of the news media. After all, they told the electorate that Trump was a clown who had no chance to win the republican primary let alone the general election against the smartest woman alive, HRC. And the ignorant, unwashed masses ignored them. So, just like the man that yells louder when he realizes that the person to whom he is speaking is deaf, the media simply shouted the lies louder, making no attempt to disguise the fallacious nature of the information. It is refreshing when the clock strikes midnight and the masks come off.

    “…newspapers were little more than opinion organs for their owners, and editors…”

    True. But the “news media” is predominantly the “democrat media.”

    While here are plenty of accurate news sources, they just haven’t been around long enough to be considering “mainstream” (in this case, a scam of a name, if there ever was one.)

    During WW2, we were in a fight – a literal fight, not a ‘hearts and minds’ thing – for our very survival as a nation. There was no important news other than war news.

    World War One was even worse:
    First world war: how state and press kept truth off the front page:
    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/27/first-world-war-state-press-reporting

    Other than the NY Times, and its shilling for the Soviets and for North Vietnam, American news was never anti-American.

    Different story today. Now, young Americans are anti-Americans.

    Millennials Are Clueless About Communism. Here’s Why That’s a Problem.
    http://dailysignal.com/2017/11/03/millennials-clueless-communism-heres-thats-problem/

    We have unbridled. blatant leftist sedition within our schools and our media.

    This is what happens when you elected rockefellers, boehners, ryans, mccains, grahams and mcconnells to amass power within your opposition party.

    We have have one shot left with Donald Trump. If we let him fail, we lose our country.

      I suggest that you check out the reporting during the Vietnam War years. It was uniformly anti-war and anti-government. It was hopelessly slanted. It is historical fact, supported by none other than General Giap, that North Vietnam was ready to sue for peace following the disastrous, for them, Tet Offensive, However, the news media continued to portray the Tet Offensive as a defeat for the Allies. This fraudulent reporting caused the US administration to take a much more conservative stance in prosecuting the war which allowed the North to regroup and eventually led to the defeat of the South. Reporting, at the time was mostly anti-war propaganda. News reporting, during WWII was also propaganda, though it was pro-Allied propaganda. Loses were downplayed or ignored and minor victories were heralded as major defeats for the enemy. The point being, that accurate, factual news reporting was abandoned for the sake of political agendas.

      Nothing has changed. Accurate, factual news reporting is still being ignored in order for news organs to prosecute a particular agenda. The only difference today is that the media is making absolutely NO attempt to disguise this action.

      Then we have Fox News. Interestingly enough Fox News programing is largely divided into three rather distinct genres. The first is the opinion shows. There are essentially six of these, all in prime time weekdays and on weekends. They are much more conservative than the rest of the network programing. Then, you have the entertainment shows. These air mostly during the day on weekdays and most of the hosts are obviously liberal in viewpoint. The news shows, weekday afternoons and Sunday Mornings are decidedly liberal in tone. Fox has a brilliant business model. It actually appeals to conservatives, moderates and liberals, making it relatively for each of these demographics to find the orientation that it wants by time of day.

    travelinman48 in reply to Mac45. | November 7, 2017 at 6:40 pm

    Nice one mac45 in full agreement with ya

The media is just another corrupt Institution. There was a time you could read between the lines like you did with Pravda get a sense of the true story. No longer. It’s almost entirely fiction now. Waste of my time to even read it. If I’m going to read fiction it better have Stompy robots and good sex.

And what the hell is with the title of this article “should they be”. The media should be tarred and feathered and then driven out of town on a rail.

Should it be at an all-time low? No, it shouldn’t be, because the truth is that the news media are no less trustworthy now than they’ve ever been. I just saw someone pining for the days when we could trust Cronkite. But we could never trust him, we just didn’t know it. We thought we could trust him, but we were wrong. at least now we know they’re lying to us, which is better than not knowing.

Bitterlyclinging | November 7, 2017 at 6:27 am

The media is sworn mortal enemy of all things Conservative and/or Republican.
Life is simpler once you accept that as fact. They hate your guts.

A big item that never seems to get addressed in these kind of stories is the IPad or the cell phone. Prior to the technological revolution that essentially put the internet at our fingertips, and made it portable enough to always be there, we used to engage in conversation.

We no longer do that. At a dinner party, at a home barbecue, among a work break, anywhere that people are gathered they talk about things. What has changed, though, is that as soon as someone makes a statement everyone else hauls out their electronic devices to fact-check what the person said. And whoever finds the search-page answer first announces it, and that part of the conversation comes to an end.

We no longer, or far too infrequently, actually talk about things. Prior to advent of portable ‘know-it-all’ devices, the person’s statement would get discussed, we’d nibble around the edges, we’d add our perspectives to the variations that the original statement generated – in short, we used to actually examine what the person stated, and worry around it enough to fit it into our views, or to formulate arguments against it. We actually gained knowledge from these un-definite conversations. We could learn perspectives that we’d not considered; we learned how to consider alternate viewpoints.

We no longer do that. A statement is made; the search engine is launched; the statement is either validated or refuted right there on the spot. No discussion necessary, and all prospects of elaboration, and the added knowledge and education that we used to gain from actual discussion, are ended.

Discussion has transmogrified into pronouncement. This contributes heavily to why we are ‘dumbing down’ as a society; why we have difficulty separating fact from fiction / news from opinion. We are no longer challenged to do so, and those social skills are atrophied.

(Which doesn’t even begin to address the underlying assumption that ‘everything is on the internet’. It isn’t, but if it can’t be found, then it is treated as non-existent.)

    Ragspierre in reply to ss396. | November 7, 2017 at 9:26 am

    I’m not contradicting you, but I have never seen that happen in the circles in which I socialize. In fact, most of us would find it rude for anyone to have a phone in hand. We certainly would not have our own phones on at the dinner table.

Same here. But I love deep on flyover country surrounded by deplorables, most of whom work hard at balancing independence with civility and concern for others.

. . . live deep . . .

Blasted auto correct!

I’m amazed YouTube hasn’t taken this video down yet.

In one short decade the objective of US news programming has transitioned from ‘reporting impartial investigative journalism’ to controlling what the viewership sees and thinks. Pravda would be proud.

The content (or lack thereof) and opinion in the MSM news never fails to disgust me on a daily basis.

    Mac45 in reply to Twanger. | November 7, 2017 at 10:25 pm

    The news media changed in one short decade? Please. Have you forgotten the staged pick-up truck explosions by the media? How about the bogus Geo. W. Bush document presented during his first campaign [60 minutes Rather gate]? Then there were several other 60 Minutes scandals. How about the Cronkite characterizations during the Vietnam War? And they go on and on.

    Nothing has changed, with the media, except that they are no longer even attempting to hide their biased activities.