Media Falls Below Congress in Trust Survey
Gallup's annual confidence survey shows 69% of Americans will not relieve themselves on a journalist in flames
The just-released results from Gallup’s Trust in Media Survey leave no doubt that members of my profession are officially America’s lowest life form. Gallup asked:
In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media — such as newspapers, T.V. and radio — when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly — a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?
A great deal 8
Fair amount 23
Not very much 33
None at all 36
The Great Deal/Fair Amount number of 31% roughly ties* Gallup’s lowest-ever number, first recorded in 2016. The more shocking result is the combined Not much (33%) and None at all (36!) number of 69%. That is four points worse than the 65% figure posted by the usual standard-setter for mistrust: “The legislative branch, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.” It’s really not that close, as most distrust of Congress is of the softer, “Not very much” variety (46%), while the press laps elected counterparts by 17 points (36%-19%) in the far more hardcore None at all category.
It’s impossible to overstate this embarrassment. There are necrophiliacs who wouldn’t touch a congressional corpse. You may not hesitate to sacrifice a congressman in a lifeboat, but you think twice about eating him, even starving. Record fines for misconduct, and more informational access to behaviors like legal insider tradingmean the elected officials Twain called America’s only “distinctly native criminal class” are hated more than ever. Yet expectations for journalists are now lower than those for Congress. Asked about trust in a politician, “None at all” is what people say when they expect nothing to get done. With media, it’s what you say if you don’t even trust a reporter to tell the time. It’s an extraordinary indictment.
The new horrorshow figures are driven by a 16% drop among Democrats over the last two years. That’s important because press watchdogs for years blew off low survey results, saying they were artificially weighted because “being ‘anti-media’ is part of [Republicans’] political identity,” as FiveThirtyEight once put it. That was back when most corporate media companies were proudly in the doling-shit-out business. Now they’re eating it:
https://www.racket.news/p/impossible-dream-realized-media-falls?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The System Is Corrupted, and the Mainstream Media Is Lying to us! Exploring the Relation Between Affinity Toward Conspiracy Myths and Alternative News Media Usage
https://academic.oup.com/ijpor/article/36/1/edad044/7503112
