WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.
The record distrust in the media, based on a survey conducted Sept. 6-9, 2012, also means that negativity toward the media is at an all-time high for a presidential election year. This reflects the continuation of a pattern in which negativity increases every election year compared with the year prior. The current gap between negative and positive views — 20 percentage points — is by far the highest Gallup has recorded since it began regularly asking the question in the 1990s. Trust in the media was much higher, and more positive than negative, in the years prior to 2004 — as high as 72% when Gallup asked this question three times in the 1970s.
It’s just a poll, so take it with as large a grain of salt as you want. It’s just something to consider the next time you see or read a story about how this time, Romney has really blown it. “Mitt sure is getting clobbered by the media,” crows a delighted media. Their instruction manual is The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
It sure is annoying that the Libya debacle is distracting from the Romney tape, isn’t it, oh exalted gatekeepers? What’s up with the common rabble who are fortunate enough to receive your wisdom? Where are their priorities? Don’t they know you’re good for them?
P.S. Bryan Preston: “After two awful weeks for Barack Obama that included his Democrats booing God, a terrible jobs report, terrorist attacks in the Middle East on 9-11, and administration spin about those attacks that no one believes, the media would have you know that Mitt Romney has had a terrible week… The bottom line is, if you distrust the mainstream media, it’s because you’ve been paying attention.”
