Confidence In Print, Television Journalism At All-Time Lows

Meanwhile, confidence in newspaper journalism is up just slightly from an all-time low of 22% set in 2007:

The polling also shows that, despite the fact that conservatives are generally the most distrustful of the media, right now liberals and so-called “moderates” have the lowest amount of faith.

What’s driving this overall distrust in traditional television/newspaper media? The internet, of course, though not for the reasons that a lot of mainstream media types might want us to believe. It’s not about the media becoming more superficial or partisan or polarized. It’s a myth that the media was ever really anything but those things.

Rather, what the internet has done is add perspective to the news. It used to be, when a reporter gave us a story, we really didn’t have a lot of alternative but to take that report at face value. These days there are more media outlets than just newspapers and television, and even citizens on the scene are able to share video, photographs and on-the-ground accounts.

What all that additional information has proven to the public is that the version of events that’s reported in the newspaper/television often doesn’t bear very close resemblance to what actually happened.