The deteriorating trust in the American media

Journalism and the media are being called out. It took Van Jones, ACORN, and the Tea Party Rallies that led up to the Washington, D.C. Rally to help Americans clearly see that the media is biased with how they report and what they do not report.

The media’s credibility has fallen in the polls. You may check out the article about the Pew Research Center poll here.

With few exceptions, the news media’s credibility has been eroding since 1985. Back then, 55 percent of the respondents believed newspapers and broadcasters generally got things right.

By 1999, the figure had fallen to 37 percent. The only time the Pew survey recorded a significant shift in the media’s favor was in November 2001, when 46 percent said they believed news stories were accurate. Dimock attributes the anomaly to the sense of goodwill that permeated the United States after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

The most recent poll found just 29 percent believed news reports had the facts straight. (Eight percent said they didn’t know.)

Similarly, only 26 percent of the respondents said the press is careful to avoid bias. The figure was 36 percent in 1985.

Mike Huckabee has a terrific post about the ‘death’ of journalism. I am pleased that Huckabee is speaking out on this important topic. I share a portion of his article:

I’m sad to report today a death of a good friend to all of us…..Journalism, the once esteemed 4th estate of our nation and the protector of our freedoms and a watchdog of our rights has passed away after a long struggle with a crippling and debilitating disease of acute dishonesty aggravated by advanced laziness and the loss of brain function.

While providing cover for President Obama and many of his contradictory statements, several practicing journalists broke their arms patting themselves on the back and broke their legs tripping over their own words.  The fall brought about serious head injuries rendering the profession with only a minimal brain function.  Despite heroic efforts at the White House to show tender and thoughtful love to friendly reporters, journalism has slipped from the news pages of major papers.

Then there are those in the media who wish to paint the Tea Party participants as being racist, white, and old. Please read on. I share a portion of the article and some comments that were left after the article that I found interesting. Non-media Americans have a great way to get their point across, as well.

(ChattahBox)—A crowd of tea party protesters estimated by the DC Fire Department at about 60,000 to 70,000 people, swarmed the west side of the Capitol along the Mall on Saturday. Some of the attendees were armed with cardboard signs displaying racial smears, ignorance, bigotry and anger. The crowd was mostly white with a large number of senior citizens and families.

The comments:

The media shows only the extreme views from left and right.
When the rest of us our allowed to display our ability to work through problems together, calmly and peacefully, the country will be a better place.
Media: Please stop dividing our nation in the name of ratings.

Did you cover the anti-war marches with the same disgust? Probably not. You probably wouldn’t mention that pro-Obamacare rallies contain paid union members filling the audience either.

If you are going to say that Americans who are peaceably exercising their right of free speech with “cardboard signs displaying their racism, ignorance, bigotry”, I suggest you at least provide some pictures of these offending signs. To use such vile terms as “racists” and bigots” against people who disagree with the current administration is certainly not journalism. To make those kinds of statements and then not back them up with any kind of substantial facts is should be criminal. Every person shown in your pictures should sue you for libel; they would win hands down.

I find it very telling that rather than answer the questions these Americans (remember their right to free speech) are asking, the left and left leaning persons writing trash like this article prefer to resort to name calling. Could it be you have no good and reasonable answers? Could it be they have no position to argue from? You just can’t dispute the facts, so cloud the issue with race baiting. Calling this “Journalist” denigrates every true journalist who ever put pen to paper. You should be very ashamed.

What’s wrong with this group for being almost entirely white?
You don’t confront black marches for being almost entirely black, or hispanic marches for being almost entirely hispanic.

Americans for Truth speaks out about media bias.

It deserves remembering that smug, out-of-touch media types like Rachel Maddow MSNBC’s resident lesbian leftist, her über-obnoxious fellow MSNBC talker Keith Olbermann and CNN’s Anderson Cooper viciously mocked the initial mass “tea party” protests with smirking jabs attaching them to “teabagging” — which, as it turns out, is a twisted oral sex act…  It was certainly a low point in the history of U.S. media to watch highly paid TV celebrities airing their inside dirty joke that compared decent, concerned Americans to a modern perversion.

And, finally, The Heritage Foundation informs us of more media unfairness with their lack of covering important issues of the day.

Why didn’t the old media report on Jones, or ACORN? Where was 60 Minutes, or 20/20? And where are all the old media on the tea party protestors? Why do they keep denigrating them, emphasizing how angry they are, or how they are unrepresentative of the public?

Why doesn’t the ‘old media’ cover such issues? As is said so often on cable news: “That’s a good question.” Perhaps the American media will be forced to be more balanced in their coverage when ratings and revenues continue to speak.