Pew Poll: Media “Failing To Stand Up For America”
US public sees news media as biased, inaccurate, uncaring
More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don’t care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.
And poll respondents who use the Internet as their main source of news — roughly one quarter of all Americans — were even harsher with their criticism, the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center said.
More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don’t care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased.
More than half — 53 percent — of Internet users also faulted the news organizations for “failing to stand up for America”.
Among those who get their news from newspapers and television, criticism of the news organizations was up to 20 percentage points lower than among Internet news audiences, who tend to be younger and better educated than the public as a whole, according to Pew.
The poll indicates an across the board fall in the public’s opinion on the news media since 1985, when a similar survey was conducted by Times Mirror, Pew Research said.
“Two decades ago, public attitudes about how news organizations do their job were less negative. Most people believed that news organizations stood up for America… a majority believed that news organizations got the facts straight,” Pew said in a report.
The Washington-based Pew Research Center describes itself as a nonpartisan “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
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No surprise to me what the results would be, but certainly a surprise that the poll was ever taken. here’s to those of us who knew all along.
August 10th, 2007 at 5:53 amInternet sure got me out of the cave. I didn’t know I was a mushroom. Who says you can’t teach an older dog new tricks? Notice I said older not old.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:03 amNO SHIT!
August 10th, 2007 at 6:09 amBefore the Internet, Big News had a monopoly on political and social discussion. The people who started TV news all came over from newspapers and maintained their professional links with print media. What sold in the morning papers, obviously, led the news at 6pm.
But now, the middleman is cut out of the loop. People like Pat and Mike Yon don’t need to answer to an editor or producer (or not anywhere near as much as before). Even on YouTube, we are shown things Big News would have turned away for 10,000 reasons. People of like-minded political bent suddenly realize they are not alone.
If you think the media revolution has been incredible to this point, wait another 20 years. We are on the cusp of the very notion of “journalism” being completely overhauled. What Walter Cronkite studied in college will be soon termed “socially appropriate propaganda,” and a new wave of reporters will take the fore, with an entirely new skill set.
We are only beginning to see the immensity of the wave that, at its crest, will reveal just how broadly human society has been misled and deceived by “professionals.”
August 10th, 2007 at 6:29 amReally I had no idea
I never watch the news anymore. Get all my info from the net.
August 10th, 2007 at 6:30 amsun rises in the east, the sky is blue, and the media is biased
August 10th, 2007 at 7:01 amIts thats simple isnt it Steve in NC? oh and the world is round. Even though the muslims still think its flat
definitely not a surprise but i am glad they actually took this poll
August 10th, 2007 at 7:14 amthe downside to the internet new boom, is stuff like Loose Change. There is no professional filter to get rid of the junk
August 10th, 2007 at 7:25 amobjectivity is impossible.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:30 amI always call my local affilate channels and complain about their bias… even our local Fox channel is full of left bias.
I read my news on the blogs mostly, it is vetted multi times by folks that I’ve learned to trust.
FNS is great even when you want to hear a screaming moonbat too, but sometimes I just can’t take it anymore.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:44 amTo Ted B - I’ll drink one to that!
August 10th, 2007 at 8:03 amAnd most of the bastards who make an attempt to read the news they are given fuck it up. I don’t believe most of these network news heads could have a conversation without a teleprompter. The editor is certainly the biased asshole because I don’t think the people doing the reporting pay any attention to what they are reading in the first place. They are simply word readers who have to read the bias of the editors.
August 10th, 2007 at 8:13 amI gave up watching TV news shows a long, long, long time ago. Sites like this one is where I get my news.
Has anyone else noticed FoxNews moving toward the left in their reporting lately, or is it just me?
August 10th, 2007 at 11:10 amYeah Steven D, I have noticed an increasing leftward trend in fox news. It makes me sad that they are increasingly jumping on the popular band wagon at the expense of their own good sense and journalistic integrity. I had to stop watching bill oreilly after I heard him start in on us needing to leave iraq because of a lack of progress. There is no loyalty left anymore.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:20 pm