Do Americans Still Trust Established Media Outlets?

[AUFAN78 3,911]

This article investigates how much confidence Americans place in conventional news outlets, alternative news outlets, and media-published political surveys. We use party affiliation and ideology to analyze the situation.

While 72% of Democrats trust traditional media, 66% of Republicans and 60% of Independents do not.

https://tippinsights.com/do-americans-still-trust-established-media-outlets/

[SLAG-91 1,483]

Unsurprising.

Media has leaned liberal for a long time, and the Democratic party is broadly perceived the "liberal" party. Why wouldn't they approve of the more traditional media outlets? 

Internet/social media has accelerated the deep divide and suspicion, imo. Proper journalism is harder and harder to find, and revenue-driven clickbait seems to be the order of the day now, even more so than before.

Being first seems to be much more important than being right, and in our current rapid-fire news cycle, this is poison.

Sensationalism isn't new, but the sheer volume now is daunting. It's like a billion-headed hydra, and it is exhausting to sift through the much more easily accessed mountains of bull**** to find some nuggets of truth.

[AU9377 4,960]

The divide is due to the development of opinion or editorial journalism in cable news.  The Murdoch family didn't start Fox News with any motive other than to make a fortune. They quickly recognized, in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, that there was a way to consolidate viewers and cultivate their loyalty by telling them what they want to hear. Feed them and they will come back for more.  Fox decided to have two divisions, one for entertainment and the other for news.  The problem is that the average American doesn't draw a line between the news at 6pm and entertainment at 7pm.  If it is on the same channel, it is all one production to the common person.  They were financially successful beyond anything they could have ever imagined.  Their traditional rival in cable news was CNN, and later MSNBC.  CNN resisted using the Fox model for several years. As with most things, money wins in the end and the need for profits has caused other cable news outlets to cater more and more to viewers that have opinions that differ from those on Fox.  That is what has been destroying trust in news coverage.

[I_M4_AU 7,853]

23 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

The divide is due to the development of opinion or editorial journalism in cable news.  The Murdoch family didn't start Fox News with any motive other than to make a fortune.

Yeah, that’s ticket.  It’s all just FOX News, yeah, yeah.

23 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

Feed them and they will come back for more.

“Democracy dies in darkness” has been The Washington Post’s oh-so-sanctimonious slogan these last four years, but what does promoting anonymous lies do for the republic?

The paper just had to run a correction that amounts to a huge retraction of its “scoop” last year about then-President Donald Trump supposedly telling a Georgia election official “find the fraud” in the state’s presidential voting so she could be “a national hero.” The actual audio file of that conversation has turned up, and it turns out he used no such words.

Trump instead urged the official, who The Wall Street Journal identifies as Frances Watson, to conduct a thorough investigation of Fulton County votes out of concern that “something bad happened” to ballots from the area. He also said she was doing the “most important job in the country right now.” No threats, no assertion of certain fraud, no suggestion that she rig a recount or anything else nefarious.

Oddly, the correction appears online as a preface to the original story, yet the headline still accuses Trump of possible obstruction.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/16/washington-post-correction-tells-a-sordid-tale-of-agenda-driven-journalism/

The WaPo outright lied to the American people without verifying quotes and those quotes were used in the articles of impeachment in January.  There is a reason most conservatives do not trust the media, a very good reason.

The left doesn’t need Qanon to spread non sense, they have The NY Times and WaPo.

[AU9377 4,960]

50 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Yeah, that’s ticket.  It’s all just FOX News, yeah, yeah.

“Democracy dies in darkness” has been The Washington Post’s oh-so-sanctimonious slogan these last four years, but what does promoting anonymous lies do for the republic?

The paper just had to run a correction that amounts to a huge retraction of its “scoop” last year about then-President Donald Trump supposedly telling a Georgia election official “find the fraud” in the state’s presidential voting so she could be “a national hero.” The actual audio file of that conversation has turned up, and it turns out he used no such words.

Trump instead urged the official, who The Wall Street Journal identifies as Frances Watson, to conduct a thorough investigation of Fulton County votes out of concern that “something bad happened” to ballots from the area. He also said she was doing the “most important job in the country right now.” No threats, no assertion of certain fraud, no suggestion that she rig a recount or anything else nefarious.

Oddly, the correction appears online as a preface to the original story, yet the headline still accuses Trump of possible obstruction.

https://nypost.com/2021/03/16/washington-post-correction-tells-a-sordid-tale-of-agenda-driven-journalism/

The WaPo outright lied to the American people without verifying quotes and those quotes were used in the articles of impeachment in January.  There is a reason most conservatives do not trust the media, a very good reason.

The left doesn’t need Qanon to spread non sense, they have The NY Times and WaPo.

Did you listen to the conversation with the Republican Georgia Secretary of State?  Better still, just listen to Trump yesterday.  Judges base their decisions on evidence. When there is no evidence to support overturning the will of the people, judges, in keeping their oath to the Constitution of the United States, refuse to destroy the very foundation this country was built upon.

 

[I_M4_AU 7,853]

14 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

Did you listen to the conversation with the Republican Georgia Secretary of State?  Better still, just listen to Trump yesterday.  Judges base their decisions on evidence. When there is no evidence to support overturning the will of the people, judges, in keeping their oath to the Constitution of the United States, refuse to destroy the very foundation this country was built upon.

The conversation that was misquoted was not between Trump and Georgia Sec of State, it was between Trump and Frances Watson an investigator for Fulton Co, Ga.  The WaPo fabricated an exchange between the two and did not verify the conversation.  This information is part of the *feed them what they want and they will come back for more* part of the left’s propaganda.

[wdefromtx 3,159]

All the established outlets are pretty much trash. They are all about the money, Fox was started as an alternative to the crap on CNN, as well as MSNBC who started around the time of Fox. So in response CNN got worse, then Fox.....it's all to cater to their viewers to get that money. But blaming Fox for the decline of the news is dumb. They all made decisions based on what the other was doing and that is on them. 

[AU9377 4,960]

2 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

The conversation that was misquoted was not between Trump and Georgia Sec of State, it was between Trump and Frances Watson an investigator for Fulton Co, Ga.  The WaPo fabricated an exchange between the two and did not verify the conversation.  This information is part of the *feed them what they want and they will come back for more* part of the left’s propaganda.

As you stated, the WaPo later retracted the original information.  However, you have to admit that Trump's actions thereafter evidenced his efforts to  change the outcome of the Georgia vote.  His conversation the Georgia Secretary of State specifically asked that he find the exact number of votes needed to change the outcome.  The SOS told him that they had no evidence of fraudulent voting on the scale it would take to find that number of votes and Trump's response was to warn of consequences.  Trump's actions border on treason and certainly display a total lack of respect for the ideals this country has supported around the world for the past 100 plus years.

[AU9377 4,960]

8 minutes ago, wdefromtx said:

All the established outlets are pretty much trash. They are all about the money, Fox was started as an alternative to the crap on CNN, as well as MSNBC who started around the time of Fox. So in response CNN got worse, then Fox.....it's all to cater to their viewers to get that money. But blaming Fox for the decline of the news is dumb. They all made decisions based on what the other was doing and that is on them. 

The Murdochs, founders of Fox, have been involved in scandal world wide for decades.  He has been called before Parliament in the U.K. and is now being investigated in Australia for using his media outlets to spread false information to shape national debate. He is now in the process of relinquishing control and that cannot happen soon enough.  As for CNN, yes, they do have a left slant.  However, they report actual events.  They have their problems for certain.  They tend to race bait and over report social justice.  That said, the way Fox covered the Trump administration was an absolute affront to journalism of any kind.  It was nothing more than state run propaganda for over 4 years.  Actually giving life to the notion that some great fraud had taken place when they knew damn well it had not was disgusting.

[CoffeeTiger 5,113]

I'm sorry, I don't buy at all the notion that Conservatives would trust traditional media more if it were more "fair" or didn't have "bias". The  people who complain about the Media's liberal bias are the same type of people who think Tucker Carlson is an actual news journalist, and believe that obvious propaganda outlets like Newsmax, OneAmericaNews and The Epoch Times are fair, trustworthy sources or information.  Fox News is probably the most balanced major Conservative news outlet out there even though it is de facto the media arm of the GOP, because it does employ a small number of impartial news journalists that will report actual news (Which is why you're finding more and more Conservatives who believe Fox News is becoming too liberal itself).

 

I don't think the problem is that news isn't "balanced" anymore, I think it's that more and more people out there don't want any news that doesn't support their pre-formulated opinions and political beliefs. They want the news to confirm what they already believe to be true, and "Balanced" news will sometimes show them facts or opinions that they wont agree with, and that's strictly unacceptable for a growing number of people. 

 

 

 

 

[AUFAN78 3,911]

21 hours ago, AU9377 said:

As for CNN, yes, they do have a left slant.  However, they report actual events. 

Jussie and Andrew say hello just for starters. 

[AU9377 4,960]

47 minutes ago, AUFAN78 said:

Jussie and Andrew say hello just for starters. 

If you are talking about Cuomo, they have been all over that nonsense from the start.  You can't expect his brother to dwell on it during his show, but others have all but called for him to resign.  Of course, at Fox you are told otherwise.

[AUFAN78 3,911]

1 hour ago, AU9377 said:

If you are talking about Cuomo, they have been all over that nonsense from the start.  You can't expect his brother to dwell on it during his show, but others have all but called for him to resign.  Of course, at Fox you are told otherwise.

Great! It only took a year dude. And while I cannot be certain, I seem to recall Fox clips calling this out from near the beginning. So basically one got it right from the beginning the other didn't. 

 

[AU9377 4,960]

1 hour ago, AUFAN78 said:

Great! It only took a year dude. And while I cannot be certain, I seem to recall Fox clips calling this out from near the beginning. So basically one got it right from the beginning the other didn't. 

 

You are talking about the controversy over where someone that died is counted as a death.  I thought you were talking about him holding someone's hand for a moment of hugging them... you know those horrible non criminal acts of kindness.  He isn't responsible for deaths.  When someone is released from the hospital, even if they still test positive, we know now that they aren't contagious, per current CDC guidelines.  The man actually tried to lead this time last year, at a time when we had zero leadership out of Washington.

[AUFAN78 3,911]

46 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

You are talking about the controversy over where someone that died is counted as a death.  I thought you were talking about him holding someone's hand for a moment of hugging them... you know those horrible non criminal acts of kindness.  He isn't responsible for deaths.  When someone is released from the hospital, even if they still test positive, we know now that they aren't contagious, per current CDC guidelines.  The man actually tried to lead this time last year, at a time when we had zero leadership out of Washington.

In this particular instance, I am talking about CNN failing to hold Cuomo accountable for a year. If it helps you, they weren't alone. 

All this points back to the original point, media distrust.