Americans' Confidence in Television News Drops to New Low---Gallup results

[Mira]

July 10, 2012
Americans' Confidence in Television News Drops to New Low
Liberals' and moderates' views are now similar to conservatives'
by Lymari Morales

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' confidence in television news is at a new low by one percentage point, with 21% of adults expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in it. This marks a decline from 27% last year and from 46% when Gallup started tracking confidence in television news in 1993.





source:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155585/Americans-Confidence-Television-News-Drops-New-Low.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics%20-%20USA

[progressoid]

1. Just as I suspected.

Conservatives confidence is highest.

Gullible Fox viewers.

[DireStrike]

7. Liberals' confidence is higher for the majority of that chart.

[valerief]

20. Liberals watch liberal news shows not MSM boobathons. nt

[bluedigger]

27. I'm curious - what triggered the sudden decline in May-June 2011?

I figured it out! Glenn Beck left Faux in June 2011. Now I don't know who to trust!

[liberalmike27]

33. The Fact

That conservatives have less faith for the majority of the chart seems to me to point out the success of the MSM at "branding" itself, as liberal. I've always said, if the idea conservatives tout, that the media was both liberal and trying to brainwash people toward being liberal, would it constantly allow and bring on guests who say "liberal media, liberal media, liberal media," a few thousand times a week? Nope.

So it surprises me that liberals ever have any faith in the media, but due to the same reason, the liberals were duped too, into believing the media had their backs. Seriously though, as a rabid liberal, I completely left the media in the 1990s, as there was nothing, nothing at all worth watching.

My guess is, the periods where faith rises were periods of national disasters, or world disasters, like the oil spill, Tsunami, then nuclear disaster. All of those are seemingly forgotten now, as continued reporting on radiation spewing into our atmosphere and ocean makes for bad press for the right-wing agenda of building more nuke plants.

The bouncy nature of liberal belief also seems to represent my own feelings from time to time, toggling between disgust for my party and the political system, and little bouts of wanting to believe in Democrats, hoping democrats will one day fix our money-buys-politicians system.

[Larry Ogg]

30. According to the following chart, Democrats and Liberals are the uneducated, magical thinking,

faux news loving morons.

While the Republicans and Conservatives have more of a clue than collage graduates!





http://www.gallup.com/poll/123365/americans-remain-distrusting-news-media.aspx

[HiPointDem]

38. still none too high. interesting how liberals' confidence drops to the end of the bush admin, rises

at the beginning of the obama admin, then drops at the end of obama's first term -- while conservatives' drops steadily until the end of obama's first.

[tularetom]

2. That's both good and bad news

It's good that people have caught on to the fact that TV news is not news.

It's bad news because a lot of people have probably lost confidence in TV news because they actually believe in the liberal media fiction blathered constantly from right wing radio.

[orwell]

3. Here's some "news" for you...

...they don't care. The propaganda catapult will work 24/7 whether you like it or not.

They keep up the steady flow of BS because it works.

How else can you explain the 2010 election...let's re-elect the same bastards who sent us over the cliff because we need to "stick it to the man".

Brainwash, rinse, repeat...

Same as it ever was.

[harun]

4. Who's the 20% of the dopes with "a great deal" of confidence, lol?

[JHB]

8. The people not paying attention. n/t

[Dustlawyer]

29. Older white people! Happy to say my mom is no longer one of them.

I pulled her blinders off awhile ago. Their generation grew up with Edgar R. Murrow and Cronkite. Sadly, those days are long gone!

[siligut]

5. Maybe it is the proposed law to make propaganda legal?

Could have something to do with it. That and obviously partisan reporting.

[lpbk2713]

6. Who knew?

[Mira]

14. Appropriate to say the least. Thanks for the laugh. n/t

[The Wizard]

15. CIA (NT)

[turtlerescue1]

9. Sometimes we just have to give up our delusions.

[SCVDem]

10. Aaron Sorkin strikes again!

It seems his HBO show "The Newsroom" hasn't wasted any time stating the same and actually had an apology for doing bogus news for years.

Pity it's just HBO and not real life.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Hopefully Aaron Sorkin's Newsroom will contribute to the negative numbers

and drive even more people away from tv.

Altho I suspect the folks who watch his show are already in the "no confidence" group.

[toddwv]

12. Mmmmmm, there seems to be a robust correlation here...

[RockaFowler]

32. What a graphic . . .

In less than 30 years, too

[liberalmike27]

34. The Time Period

goes along with something I always say when people talk about Bush ruining everything. This crap has been going on for over thirty years now. You could make a point that the tax cut by Kennedy/Johnson from 91 to 74 was a beginning of our problems, though many like to say we just got rid of a lot of deductions. But clearly from the 1980s on, the media was reduced to the control of fewer and fewer corporations. That makes advertising more important. If your news pisses off someone, then you'll lose their advertising on hundreds of stations. With a better distribution, hundreds of news outlets, at least some news outlets that don't have advertising from a particular corporation might actually report the truth. Advertising is a powerful stop to investigative journalism.

Then there was the repeal of the fairness doctrine in the late 1980s, and the folding of "news" into "entertainment" divisions of corporations about then too. You see, what was spawned just after that? FOX, and Rush Limbaugh. I remember him being on late at night, and like Glen Beck, I'd listen for about a minute, say "This guy is nuts, I can't even believe he's on television." But they kept putting him on, both television and radio. He lost money, lost money, lost money for five years, but they kept trying to brainwash Americans. And if there is one thing we know, Americans are sheep. Eventually he managed a flock, along with FAKE NewsCorp. Then the 1990s were awash with FOX copy-cats, constantly talking about where Bill Clinton's penis had been. More free-trade agreements were passed, globalization flourished, credit was extended to fill the gap. In 1999 the congress and president passed the repeal of Glass-Steagal, the final piece in place once again, to create a new depression.

And it isn't hard to believe, that if we'd kept the media from concentrating as it did, that much of this wouldn't have happened. The rest is history. Sadly, it may-too, be our future from now on, as it appears intransigent.

[limpyhobbler]

13. The problem with TV news...

...is the subjects they don't talk about.

The best thing on TV is the Bill Moyers show.

Even MSNBC, I like the people, but they would each make a better show if they ran their own independent program on the internet, without the oil & gas companies sponsoring them.

Sorry I don't trust news sponspored by Exxon and Chevron.

Not sure why anyone would. Not saying they lie, but they only cover a limited range of topics and stay away from topics that would offend the oil companies who sponsor them.

And that' the best tv news channel.

[liberalmike27]

35. Obfuscation of important news

is more of a factor on the pretend liberal side of our media, than it is on con-servative side.

It's important to realize that the media, after losing a lot of viewers like us in the 1990s, decided to put up a "representation" of "democrat" and "republican" media. It is, of course, a fake ideological spectrum. It is the corporate representation of our range of thought. But you hear regularly on shows with call-ins, that the actual people span a much greater degree of thought. This is particularly true on the left, of course, as the corporate media has fairly successfully truncated true liberalism from our airwaves, if it ever actually existed there.

It's sort of like Democrats and Republicans these days. They too represent center-right, and extreme-right positions, and the left, the poor, the lower middle class, the liberals are pretty-much ignored.

But you really don't have to obfuscate, say the military on FOX, or with Rush. Republi-cons push war constantly. But on MSNBC, since you still can't talk about the debt and the military in the same breath on the corporate media, since they both have common board members that keep that from happening, you have to obfuscate. You leave out the liberal discussion of cutting the military budget, about closing bases to save money (we've got over 800 of them, do we really need that many??). You bring on lefties that represent the center-right, like Lieberman (once, he's fallen out of favor now) and the most extreme right people. And there is hardly any discussion of the dangers of nuclear power, or much talk against anyone that might advertise, like oil companies, or pharmaceuticals.

[Doctor_J]

16. WTF do cons have to be unhappy about?

TV "news" is nothing but one long free advertizement for every far right kook in the country

[Comrade_McKenzie]

17. Excellent news. nt

[Spazito]

18. Well, if television news actually went back to doing the news instead of...

nauseating infotainment/talking heads pontificating being falsely labeled as "news", they might gain a few points.

[valerief]

19. Who are those knuckleheads who trust the MSM news? They must be very, very sheltered. nt

[Left Coast2020]

21. After the election.....

..bring a change in policy as per the FCC. In other words, dump the Comm. Act of 1996 and bring some investigative journalism as a requirement to have a TV/radio station license. And only one station per market. Not tons of radio/TV stations in a single market. And also require political candidates free air time so they won't have a reason to raise tons of money. I think Dr. Dean had this in mind when he ran in 04.

[Tx4obama]

22. Kick! n/t

[southernyankeebelle]

23. Maybe they should take a lesson from the new show Newsroom. Excellent if they want to get back

to the basics. When shows start doing that you will see people come back. For now we will get our news straight better from The Stewart show and Newsroom. Crazy I know.

[fascisthunter]

24. SO the centrists touting the MSM talking points are well, a brainwashed minority

... tsk, tsk... our usual centrists aren't chiming in.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. But..but..they have replaced dull old Cronkite with chirping heads with dazzling white teeth.

[Canuckistanian]

26. You can fool some of the people all of the time.....

[Marr]

28. I understand Pravda was eventually widely regarded as a joke, too.

Perhaps it signified the same general lack confidence in established power structures that we're seeing here.

[HiPointDem]

39. +1. now that the soviets are gone, no need to put a nice front over the fascism.

[cyberpj]

31. BBC-America. Luckily it's on our service so we can actually be informed on World News - and

remember what the Nightly News is supposed to look like.

I was surprised at the percentage of the poll though --thought more were still bamboozled than that. So good on those of them catching on, at least.

[Johonny]

36. News sources tell you "other" news sources are corrupt

that is their marketing strategy. Is it any surprise year after year of people in the media telling you how biased, wrong, and corrupt the media is that the public isn''t that trusting of the media.

[Uncle Joe]

37. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Mira.