The reputation of America’s establishment media has reached an all-time low, as reported by two polling outfits: Pew Research Center (PRC) and Quinnipiac University (Qpac). Now, there’s a surprise; we have heard this rumor before, but this incarnation is causing men to wail in public.
While most cable pundits and mouthpieces were glossing over the polls, indifferently at best, one would assume a stun grenade had just been lobbed into the bowels of CNN’s anchor coop, as Brian Stelter, host of the ironically named Reliable Sources, flapped and fumed his disbelief.
“What do you see in this data? I see an infection that’s spreading…”
He was referring to the Quinnipiac poll, which snuck in this gem of a loaded question, separating Republican respondents from Democratic:
Which comes closer to your point of view: the news media is the enemy of the people, or the news media is an important part of democracy?
Conservatives stopped taking the word of the establishment media for the Gospel around the time Clinton was president, and given these two paltry options, an impressive 51% favored the “enemy” column. What is more interesting is that 12% of respondents avoided answering the ridiculously worded question, skewing the real results.
Reliable Sources
The other, less vitriolic poll, was conducted by Pew Research Center, and although the subject matter is the same, wording and phrasing of their question brought about a more reliable outcome.
With a generous offering of responses, PRC queried several topics including America’s current political climate and the state of the Nation’s democratic processes. Their version, although not as shocking, sparked the most interesting of data, and did not separate respondents based on political ideology.
PRC asked how much confidence, if any, people have in the news media to act in the best interest of the public. The answers are stunning; only 8% checked “very confident”, with 32% “fairly confident.” But on the other end of the answer spectrum, 25% checked “no confidence” and 35% weighed in with “not too much.” Now those numbers should stun Mr. Stelter, or least pop the bubble of liberal love he’s been cocooned in.
Keep it up
Fake news is real, so to speak. And somewhat expected from trolls on social media, whether they’re just looking for a laugh or trying to seriously damage someone or something – like the 2016 presidential election. Given the internet, we all must realize that it is our responsibility to do a deep dive on news that seems suspect at best. Americans should be able to trust journalists; alas, that trust went to the grave with Walter Cronkite.
The elite media types have only themselves to blame. At a certain level of professional success, journalists should deliver to the public, not their opinion, but the cold hard facts. Today’s talking heads do not live up to past stewards of the First Amendment, and America should take them to task on their behavior.
Our elitist, leftist media outlets were repeatedly called out on their fabrication of news stories throughout the 2016 campaign and the last 18-months of Trump’s administration. That list is long, but Americans are woke, as they say; they have had enough of the propaganda.
