Pew Poll: The More Liberal You Are, The More Likely You Believe Everything You See On Television
But partisan divides aside, this study doesn’t bode well for the media in general:
More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don’t care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.
And poll respondents who use the Internet as their main source of news — roughly one quarter of all Americans — were even harsher with their criticism, the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center said.
More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don’t care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased.
More than half — 53 percent — of Internet users also faulted the news organizations for “failing to stand up for America”.
Despite this, media-types scratch their heads and wonder why it is that right-leaning outlets like Fox News Channel and the Wall Street Journal thrive as left-leaning outlets like the New York Times struggle to keep their heads above water. Yet the reason for this is pretty obvious to most observers. The liberal slant in American media is overwhelming, so when certain media outlets diverge from that leftward tilt people flock to them.
Which isn’t to say that all media should tilt to the right. Personally, I’m fine with CNN tilting to the left because that channel is offset by Fox. And I think that’s what we need: Parity. Rather than all these reporters trying to pass off their journalism as completely objective and un-influenced by their personal biases (something that is impossible to accomplish) they should wear their political allegiances on their sleeves and just report the nation’s and world’s events as they see them.
I’d even go so far as to say that organizations like Fox and CNN should strive to send reporters from both ends of the political spectrum to cover major stories. Embedding someone in Iraq? Embed two people: One hawkish, one dovish. That way the resulting overall coverage will appeal to a larger perspective.
Of course, most journalists are undoubtedly far too fond of the “crusading speaker of truth” mantle they like don and preen to do anything which makes as much sense as that.
