Trust in news collapses to historic low

[Hydrogen]

Image link:  https://i.ibb.co/dbZCTzj/one.jpg

Americans' confidence in newspapers and television news has plummeted to an all-time low, according to the latest annual Gallup survey of trust in U.S. institutions.

Why it matters: The erosion of trust in media is one of the most significant signs of deepening polarization in America.

• Political party affiliation has become the primary driver of opinions about the media's trustworthiness, as Gallup has noted.
• A 2021 poll from Pew Research Center found that Republicans are far less likely to trust media sources that are considered "mainstream."

Details: Television news is today considered the second-least trusted institution in the country, following Congress, according to the poll.

• While other institutions have also experienced precipitous declines, including banks and the medical system, others — like small business and the military — have held steady over the past few decades.

By the numbers: The trust fall in the news media been driven mostly by Republicans, according to the data.

• Just 5% of Republicans said they had "a great deal or quite a lot of confidence" in newspapers, compared to 35% of Democrats.
• Only 8% of Republicans said they had "a great deal or quite a lot of confidence" in TV news, compared to 20% of Democrats.
• Independents' views are generally closer to Republicans'.

The big picture: The media trust gap between Democrats and Republicans began to widen during the the Bush and Obama administrations, but grew dramatically during the Trump era and has continued to widen.

• Censorship and media bias have become a rallying cry among conservatives, prompting a slew of new media and tech investments, including alternative social media networks, entertainment companies and podcast networks.

Image link:  https://i.ibb.co/jLGC2y1/two.jpg

Between the lines: The lack of trust in traditional news institutions is growing as partisan voices become more accessible online.

• Data and experts suggest the public struggles to distinguish fact-based journalism from opinion content online.
• The standards used by traditional media outlets — like fact-checking, bylines, datelines, and corrections — have not been fully-adopted by online news commentators on blogs, podcasts and social media.

Yes, but: The internet can't be fully blamed for the erosion of media trust. And distrust in traditional institutions could force them to reckon with institutional problems, like a lack of diversity.

• Semafor's Ben Smith noted on stage Thursday at an event in Washington that the "single most important factor" in media distrust was "the horrible coverage" in the run-up to the Iraq war and "the disastrous media coverage in the years after 9/11," when television and newspapers were still the dominant forms of news.
• Politico founding editor and editorial chairman John Harris reminded Smith on stage that "in the old days," a handful of people at a small number of outlets had all the agenda-setting power and they "would’ve all been white men."
• "All of us have biases and that maybe true objectivity is, what does your newsroom look like? How diverse is it?" said Al Jazeera English host Femi Oke at the event.

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/08/news-republicans-democrats-trust-partisanship

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While established financial media outlets have suffered.

New media platforms associated with crypto have flourished.

Has anyone noticed a trend of younger age demographics gravitating towards newer crypto sources. As a result of established brand name media covering more generic narratives. And being more biased in favor of proof of stake and the claim of crypto mining being bad for the environment.

Established finance media also has a tendency to cover older demographics like Jim Cramer who many younger viewers would never have seen when his mad money hour was popular on TV. Established finance media covers more Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jamie Dimon.

While I think its fair to say that younger demographics trend more towards the Michael Saylors, Winklevoss Twins, Elon Musks who are covered more by crypto based media.

There could be something of a diversion developing that trends around the age gap and divide between traditional finance and newer crypto alternatives.[/list][/list]

[NeuroticFish]

People start to see that many news are paid or follow the news agency's agenda, i.e. they're biased.
People start to see that many news are intended only to exploit emotions, usually shock, in order to keep people watch the advertising in order to find out... nothing unusual.
People start finding multiple sources for news and see that most are useless and unreliable.

News has become more a business than something useful for the end user. Too bad. Should I be worried? Not really. I find it a good trend. The more people see the truth the better the chance the news agencies will have to change and start pursuing useful things and start presenting them as proper, unbiased information.

[Z-tight]

There is always some form of bias in the news, media outlets are known for publishing news that is pleasing to the ruling government, only very few media outlets do have the courage to publish untainted and unadulterated facts, i ain't an American, but the case is similar in my country too, we do not trust the media because they are censored and do not cover complete facts, it is common for media outlets to twist facts, and give details that will suit the government and their purpose.

It is no different even when traditional media outlets cover crypto news, they are still charged to post a negative information about crypto, bitcoin most especially, because they are vehemently against individual control of finances, they rather use the news to promote central bank digital currencies and other centralized services that are under government control. I do not listen to crypto news on traditional media outlets, i rather get crypto news from sources that solely cover crypto news and are unconnected to the government in any way at all.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

People start to see that many news are paid or follow the news agency's agenda, i.e. they're biased.
People start to see that many news are intended only to exploit emotions, usually shock, in order to keep people watch the advertising in order to find out... nothing unusual.
People start finding multiple sources for news and see that most are useless and unreliable.

Hate to tell you all, but all of those things have been true since the beginning of the newspaper industry (and likely before that, too).  Some young people might just be figuring that out now, but a lot of people have known that for a long time. 

However, right now the world is more divided along political and social lines than it has been since probably the 1960s, and those polls only show numbers going back to 1993/97.  Things haven't been as bad as they are now at any point in that time period.  And the divisiveness I mentioned really ramped up when Trump was running for president as far as I can tell.  His presidency polarized and hardened people's opinions about a lot of issues, and even now, after he's out of office everyone is still on edge. 

The pandemic didn't help either, especially with the controlled access to information about vaccines and whatnot by the government and the media.  People saw very clearly how the news (and social media, too) was controlled by the so-called powers that be.  I didn't take part in that poll, but if I had, they could have added another data point against the trust in media of all kinds.

[davis196]

New media platforms associated with crypto have flourished.

I wouldn't say that the crypto news websites have "flourished". They are simply following the growth of the crypto industry. This doesn't seem like "flourishing" to me. Crypto adoption and recognition isn't growing as fast as we all want.
If you ask me, the crypto news platforms deliver the same clickbait biased garbage as the mainstream media.
We live in the age of social media. It's pretty normal for the traditional media platforms to face a decline. Fake news and propaganda have been a thing for decades(or even centuries) and the current digital era makes them more accessible to a big audience.
The mainstream media will always serve it's masters- the political elite and the big corporations. This isn't going to change.
I'm not saying that social media is better. It's actually worse. The amount of censorship, fake news and brainwashing propaganda is brutal.

[NeuroticFish]

People start to see that many news are paid or follow the news agency's agenda, i.e. they're biased.
People start to see that many news are intended only to exploit emotions, usually shock, in order to keep people watch the advertising in order to find out... nothing unusual.
People start finding multiple sources for news and see that most are useless and unreliable.

Hate to tell you all, but all of those things have been true since the beginning of the newspaper industry (and likely before that, too).  Some young people might just be figuring that out now, but a lot of people have known that for a long time. 

However, right now the world is more divided along political and social lines than it has been since probably the 1960s, and those polls only show numbers going back to 1993/97.  Things haven't been as bad as they are now at any point in that time period.  And the divisiveness I mentioned really ramped up when Trump was running for president as far as I can tell.  His presidency polarized and hardened people's opinions about a lot of issues, and even now, after he's out of office everyone is still on edge. 

The pandemic didn't help either, especially with the controlled access to information about vaccines and whatnot by the government and the media.  People saw very clearly how the news (and social media, too) was controlled by the so-called powers that be.  I didn't take part in that poll, but if I had, they could have added another data point against the trust in media of all kinds.

I wasn't born in a democratic country, and I didn't care much of the history, so I don't know how the news really were in the democratic world.
In a communist country only the allowed news were published. Now, in a democracy, the money talks. The money of the owner, the money of those paying for the news (in different ways), the money for the ads.
Here the television was not so blatantly bad as start, after '89, but now the news are biased and unreliable and the movies are some sort of things/fillers between commercials.

I remember though the ads on all web pages and especially on search engines. That was in pre-Google era. Then, at some point, the pay per impressions was pretty much stopped and pay per clicks / leads was instated in most places. Maybe I was too young and stupid back then, but I have the feeling that the news "paid from banners" in the pre-Google years were more honest than those from now. Or at least not so blatantly biased.

Clearly now the world in more divided, especially since it's hard to find out which source is reliable and which is not, which creates only noise and which provides real information. And guerrilla marketing - whether for politicians or other agendas - is more and more common. Everybody tries to sell you something, everybody tries to manipulate for its own good.

You don't know which politician is worse (tip: all are crappy), you don't know which farma company is more evil (tip: all do care more about money than the people). And people are lazy too. We're living in the era of information, but most don't research / double check nothing at all. I know that the more the information, the more difficult is to dig / search, but people tend to be lazy too.


But I feel like there are more people now than in the past that see that what the news agencies do is bullshit. And this may, hopefully, get us to something better.

[Leviathan.007]

In my own idea, there is no need to check the chart to make sure how people are losing trust in the news they see from the governments and that's not something happening only in some a few countries but happening all over the world. There can be many reasons for this, but I think the main reason is the lies from the governments about many things like the economic situations and political stuff, especially during the economic crisis instead of trying to make things better the governments will try to lie about the situation. in the other hand increasing the usage of social media from people will bring them news and this will decrease their trust to the news they hear.

[Husires]

I think that the reason is that media institutions and governments did not start the race towards the Internet, centralized media, and social media until recently. Therefore, the user has gained credibility in the news that comes, because it is again devoid of false promises and bears true feelings, because it is mostly ordinary individuals and not politicians or media professionals trained on Reporting and dealing with the news.

At home and by doing a quick survey, you will notice that the sitting time in front of the TV screen to follow the news has decreased significantly.

The chart below is for the last two years, which is the "stay at home" year.

Source: https://www.marketingcharts.com/industries/media-and-entertainment-225036

[DrBeer]

Hmm... You haven't seen real propaganda yet No, not even that - you haven't seen what propaganda can do to people who seem to have a brain! If the propaganda of Hitler's Germany resulted in fantastically believing and supporting authorities, then in one country, which all the time threatens to "turn the whole West into nuclear ashes" and "get up off its knees", it turned people into a biomass that stupidly believes everything that TV says or transmit other types of media. Moreover, they are all state-owned (even if they pretend to be private), and adhere exclusively to the line of the "great leader". True, being, in terms of mental development, ciliates, the population begins to understand that the TV begins to lose to the refrigerator. You won’t fill your stomach with fabulous victories and inflated grandeur Although .... I’m not sure what they will start thinking, most likely they will be told on TV about a new enemy and that they need to “wait a bit and there will be a breakthrough”
In this country, 100% faith in the news, even if they say that it is sunny and warm outside, and outside the window, the viewer sees snow, rain and thunderstorms at a temperature of 0 degrees, he will still believe that it is warm, dry and sunny. .. and you are suffering from some kind of loss of confidence in the news!