Do You Trust The Mainstream Media?

Aaron Briggs 

The mainstream media - CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX and others have been struggling to maintain their reputations amidst the economic turmoil we have been experiencing of late. I personally never paid much attention to the mainstream media until the presidential campaigns of 2008. During an election season when the stakes are high, the media bias really comes out. I was following the campaign of Ron Paul and I was appalled by the treatment he received from the media. This is fact was made glaringly obvious during the "debates" each of the networks had a chance host. They would give their favored candidates softball questions and let them talk longer. As an observer I was absolutely disgusted. It seems that many Americans are starting to agree with me.


A recent Gallup poll asked Americans how much they trusted the mainstream media, and their most recent results indicate a record high level of distrust. See the chart below for the historic levels of trust. The trend of decreasing trust is fairly obvious.

SOURCE: Gallup

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.

The 43% of Americans who, in Gallup's annual Governance poll, conducted Sept. 13-16, 2010, express a great deal or fair amount of trust ties the record low, and is far worse than three prior Gallup readings on this measure from the 1970s.

 So where does this leave us? I personally think this is a good thing, I view most of the major networks as propaganda arms for various entities. It is pretty obvious that they won't report negative stories about companies or agencies that they receive funding from. A gradual shift toward decentralized and independent media would be a great thing for our democracy.