How much the mainstream media can be trust?

SnakeTongue

Graduate Poster
S
Joined
Aug 16, 2010
Messages
1,084
I wish start a debate about the mainstream media and how much the content offered as information can be really trust.

As starting point, I suggest the next article:

Distrust in U.S. Media Edges Up to Record High
Perceptions of liberal bias still far outnumber perceptions of conservative bias
by Lymari Morales

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% who now say this is a record high by one percentage point.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/143267/Distrust-Media-Edges-Record-High.aspx
 
Distrust In US Media Hits Record High, As CNBC (And Especially Mad Money) Viewership Drops To Multi-Year Low
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/29/2010

In today's "less than surprising data point" category, the clear winner is Gallup's analysis of people's ever increasing distrust in the mass media. From 46% in 1998, the percentage of people who indicate they have "not very much/none at all" trust in mass media has grown to a stunning 57% currently.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/di...ecially-mad-money-viewership-drops-multi-year
 
They were discussing this yesterday on NPR, the local "St. Louis Talks" had a segment on the subject, and Talk Of The Nation had a related segment on applying principals of critical thinking to the media.
The competitive "24-hour news cycle" has encouraged all sorts of outlets to jump on the latest story with out much in the way of investigation, lest they miss out. This leads to a lot of misinformation followed by rather lame apologies.
Consider the recent report of a huge landslide in a remote Mexican town. Initial reports indicated hundreds of homes buried and thousands of casualties. Reporting was rendered difficult by the remote area... No cell service and fog prevented access by helicopter.
Turns out that in the end, half a dozen homes were destroyed, and 11 people are "missing".
The president had to apologize for the scare, and officials were taken to task for diverting rescue resources from more-needed areas.

Then look at the extremely-polarized media outlets; Fox news being a glaring example.

Used to be fun when St. Louis had two newspapers; the decidedly right-leaning Globe-Democrat, and the left-leaning Post-Dispatch. You could read an account of the same incident in both papers and try to put together some semblance of what actually happened....
 
Bikewer said:
Then look at the extremely-polarized media outlets; Fox news being a glaring example.
Click to expand...


Somehow I don't think Fox News is at the core of this statistic.

And no, don't provide lists of Fox's errors. I speak of the perception of trust, which the poll measured. The graphs of the first link show this.



Used to be fun when St. Louis had two newspapers; the decidedly right-leaning Globe-Democrat, and the left-leaning Post-Dispatch. You could read an account of the same incident in both papers and try to put together some semblance of what actually happened....
Click to expand...

And now there's two broadcast "papers": Fox and CNN. And you have Rush countering 24/7 NPR. I don't defend either of these, but the polls here show people do, indeed, view "most of it" as "too liberal".
 
Last edited:
Beerina said:
Somehow I don't think Fox News is at the core of this statistic.

And no, don't provide lists of Fox's errors. I speak of the perception of trust, which the poll measured. The graphs of the first link show this.
Click to expand...

But in a way, Fox News is at the core of this Statistic, but as an effect, not a cause. The success of Fox is very much predicated on this perception
 
It is sad indeed when many people trust a couple of political comedians more than they trust the main stream news.

And people wonder why newspapers are doing so poorly these days.
 
I've said this before in other threads, but I believe today more than ever we can trust the mainstream media because we have access to so many different sources. Google News searches make it incredibly easy to get the full scoop on an issue. Bikewere referred to the good old days of having two newspapers. Now we have access to hundreds.

If you rely on a single source, you are deliberately allowing yourself to be less than fully informed and possibly misinformed. If you watch your news, shame on you! ;) On average people can read about twice as fast as people speak, so I say read articles from two different sources rather than watch TV news.
 
I do not trust any media outlet. Not when I got my trusty ouiji board.

I stopped listening to the crystal ball since it started to exhibit a distinct right wing bias.
 
uruk said:
I stopped listening to the crystal ball since it started to exhibit a distinct right wing bias.
Click to expand...

Probably it's just gotten worn a bit, casing it to be slightly off-round. THis can cause it to rol a bit either to the left or right. As a temporary measure, try rotating it 90 degrees and see if it head sback to the middle.

Long term, though, you'll need to get that fixed or it'll just get worse. I can offer my crystal ball calibration services for a mere $499.95 (plus shipping and handling)...we'll get it rounded back out correctly, with a free cleaning and polishing thrown in, along with retuning the crystal matrix for maximum ethereal awareness.
 
It was not the conservative press that started the war against Gore back in 2000. The so called liberal press had a field day making stories up about Gore.
 
uruk said:
I do not trust any media outlet. Not when I got my trusty ouiji board.

I stopped listening to the crystal ball since it started to exhibit a distinct right wing bias.
Click to expand...

Its still not as bad as the left-wing bias of FNN (Faerie News Network). Watching those pixies fly around in circles because of it can be really distracting
 
Lurker said:
It was not the conservative press that started the war against Gore back in 2000. The so called liberal press had a field day making stories up about Gore.
Click to expand...

They obviously felt threatened by the blogosphere, made possible since Gore invented the Internet. ;)
 
UncaYimmy said:
I've said this before in other threads, but I believe today more than ever we can trust the mainstream media because we have access to so many different sources. Google News searches make it incredibly easy to get the full scoop on an issue. Bikewere referred to the good old days of having two newspapers. Now we have access to hundreds.
Click to expand...

No. You have acess to 1. AP. Your multiple news sources will for the most part be AP feeds with perhaps some opinion thrown in. It's one of the reasons why we see so much Churnalism.

Real reporting is increasingly limited to a handful of companies and agencies. AP, AFP, CNN (well bits of it), BBC, al jazeera (don't laugh they actually have one of the largest foreign correspondent teams around).
 
I recently heard that the total of remaining investigative journalists employed by newspapers in the US amounts to two dozen or so, with the NYT as single largest employer of four or six. I think it was Bob McChesney who mentioned it.
 
Last edited:
SnakeTongue said:
I wish start a debate about the mainstream media and how much the content offered as information can be really trust.
Click to expand...

You're Brazilian, so your mainstream media is the media from Brazil. How much of your mainstream media do you trust?
 
Childlike Empress said:
I recently heard that the total of remaining investigative journalists employed by newspapers in the US amounts to two dozen or so, with the NYT as single largest employer of four or six. I think it was Bob McChesney who mentioned it.
Click to expand...

And what about Germany? Why don't you guys let the Americans worry about their media and mind your own business and scrutinize your own media?
 
Last edited:
Pardalis said:
And what about Germany? Why don't you guys let the Americans worry about their media and mind your own business and scrutinize your own media?
Click to expand...

Don't be such a prickly pear. The US media is interesting to investigate because it's condensed from 45+ media outlets to "the big six" in the last few decades.
 
Fishstick said:
Don't be such a prickly pear. The US media is interesting to investigate because it's condensed from 45+ media outlets to "the big six" in the last few decades.
Click to expand...

It's "interesting" because it's the easiest one to bash, beacuse it's the one the world over is scrutinizing.

All things considered and comparatively, I'm pretty sure the US media is about as much trutworthy and/or corrupt as all the other national medias in the western world. The only difference is that everyone is focusing on them. If everyone is talking and criticizing always the same country, we get a distorted view of reality.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom