Distrust of media hits record high

Published time: September 21, 2012 18:04
Edited time: September 21, 2012 22:05
AFP Photo/Greg Wood

There’s something you should hear, but we’re willing to bet you might not believe it. The results of a new Gallup poll reveal that Americans’ distrust with the media is more severe than ever.

Gallup released findings from one of their newest studies on Friday, and through their research the polling group has determined that more than half of Americans have little to no trust in the mainstream media. According to the group’s findings, 60 percent of Americans polled say they have “little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.”

Pollsters with Gallup have asked Americans about their take on the mass media routinely since the 1990s, but analyzing the answers they’ve received in the two decades or so since reveals that distrust is indeed at a record high.

Back in 1997 when Gallup first began regularly asking around, only 46 percent of the people polled said they had very little-to no trust in the media, compared to 53 percent who favored it either a great deal or a fair amount. Today, 40 percent say they trust their sources that much, compared to 44 percent just one year earlier.

The results of the Gallup study come close to mirroring statistic from a similar poll conducted recently by Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos and the SEIU. When they asked around one month ago if Americans had a "favorable or unfavorable" view of the political media, 78 percent of those polled said they were more than weary of political journalists.

That isn’t to say that Americans had a negative outlook on their news sources before that though, either. Gallup adds that they polled people for their take three different times during the 1970s, but back then as many as 72 percent responded favorably about the American media.

“Media sources must clearly do more to earn the trust of Americans, the majority of whom see the media as biased one way or the other. At the same time, there is an opportunity for others outside the ‘mass media’ to serve as information sources that Americans do trust,” Gallup reports.

Gallup conducted their latest survey between September 6 and 9, and sampled 1,017 random adults from the United States. There is a plus-or-minus margin of error of 4 percent.

Comments (71)

Aimilios G. Moschovitis (unregistered) 24.09.2012 23:04

Kevin Owen is an anti-Greek racist together with Human Rights Watch, source of information of  RT, that claims that Northern Greece belong to the 4 neighboring  countries. Some other Owen was one of the 4 persons that destroyed Serbia: Albright, general Clark, Holbrook and Owen all Jews! So it is important to know if Kevin Owen who infiltrated RT is a Jew, because the Torah says approximately: My people Israel I will arm you to exterminate the Greeks… Jews are born anti – Greek racists.  As Greek Police and Army and politicians are manipulated, we Greeks we will take it to the streets to defend our constitution our daily bread, our history, our morals, our traditions, our language, our religion, our invaded, impoverished and purposely bankrupt country. It is well known that Kissinger has said for Greece:.. destroy their culture, history etc.  We will defend our country from the main fascists of NATO {Germany, Great Britain, France, Turkey, Italy and USA}.   

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jha (unregistered) 24.09.2012 17:59

Mechta wrote in #8
 jha (unregistered) wrote in #5
Without Saudi oil money...the CIA could not have destroyed so many countries around the world during the cold war...

 Me chta wrote in #5

The USA is systematically removing control of middle eastern oil from sovereign ME nations and handing it directly to the control of major oil companies (read Queen "BP" Elizabeth and Queen "Shell"  Beatrix).   The USA is cutting out the ME middle man.  If the Saudis don't think a major war in the middle east won't remove their control of their own oil, then they're idiots.  The British Throne created all of those ME kings and they will see to it they're left with nothing in the end but a war torn country and chaos, just like all of the rest of the oil producing countries in the middle east who have been invaded by the USA.---------------- -------------------- -------------------- -------------------- ----------Well....se ems that we don't see things the same way.....Saudi Arabia  and Qatar are not any middle eastern countries...The British and Americans are ready to send their sons and daughters to die protecting  the Ibn Saud clan...As for Saudis funding the CIA...it is a known fact... no need to add anything more...Listening to you it is as if the Americans-British are gods...omnipotent... as De Gaulle said they won battles but not the war...They have created new facts on the ground...Like Hitler when he controlled all Europe...they are over confident...arogant. ..but the game has just begun....and i am 100 % sure that the Ibn Saud clan,Qatar will be thing of the past soon...THINGS NEVER GO AS PLANED....


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Spike (unregistered) 24.09.2012 15:35

I'm surprised it's not higher than 60%.  That's where the surprise lies.

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