In a classic case of getting what one deserves, fully half of Americans now believe that the national news media is self-serving, dishonest, and hardly a source of truth.
A recent Gallup survey focused on how Americans see the trustworthiness of their news organizations. A shockingly low 23% agreed that “most national news organizations care about the best interests of their readers, viewers, and listeners.”
Then there’s half the nation that perceives the media completely differently.
A full 50% of respondents told Gallup that “most national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public.”
Even more Americans, 52%, disagreed with the statement that national news organizations “care about the best interests of their readers, viewers, and listeners.”
A Gallup consultant, Sarah Fioroni, called the results “pretty striking.”
Viewed in another light, it is remarkable that half of the country puts any trust at all in the mainstream media. The track record for news organizations, especially in recent years, is nothing short of deplorable.
When the Left rioted from May to August, we were forced to overlook the violence and have a “national conversation” about why people felt such rage. Likewise, can we do the same here? Lockdowns, media lies, distrust, government tyranny…people are at their breaking point.
— Eric Matheny 🎙 (@EricMMatheny) January 7, 2021
After all, corporate media giants fed the nation a steady diet of nonsense over supposed Russian influence in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections.
The same news media burned the midnight oil to find ways to suppress the explosive Hunter Biden laptop story just weeks before the 2020 election. They did not attempt to push a narrative on this one, but instead worked to block the story’s very existence.
Technology has brought up-to-the-minute reporting to our fingertips. However, there is a noticeably opposite effect than would be expected from the ability to get news at any time with a handheld device.
While intuitively it seemed that it would be easier to stay on top of current events, a surprising 61% of Americans believe that instant availability made it harder to be informed.
Along partisan lines, Democrats have much more trust in large news organizations than Republicans. Which is understandable when noting that almost all large media outfits are slanted leftward.
However, there is realization across the board that news has become more politically biased. In 2017, 45% of Americans surveyed by Gallup felt there was a preponderance of political bias in the news.
That number in 2023 is up to 55%.
The mainstream corporate media has been sliding down the path to irrelevance for some time now. Americans are not blind to the obvious biases displayed by so-called journalists, and over time this resulted in decaying trust in what were once revered national institutions.
