BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Whom do you trust? Not us.

5 comments on Whom do you trust? Not us.

Whom do you trust? Not us.

: Confidence in news media — newspaper and TV — has reached an all-time low in Gallup‘s survey of trust in institutions.

Those having a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers dipped from 30% to 28% in one year, the same total for television. The previous low for newspapers was 29% in 1994. Since 2000, confidence in newspapers has declined from 37% to 28%, and TV from 36% to 28%, according to the poll.

However, some other institutions fared far worse this year, suggesting a broad level of distrust, cynicism or malaise.

Confidence in the presidency plunged from 52% to 44%, with Congress and the criminal-justice system also suffering 8% drops. Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court fell from 46% to 41%. The 22% confidence rating for Congress is its lowest in eight years, and self-identified Republicans have only a slightly more positive view of the institution than do Democrats.

Or it could suggest that they’re all just doing a piss-poor job.

Note also that the new pondscum of public institutions with the lowest trust of all are… drum roll and fart sound-effect at the ready, please… HMOs.

5 responses to “Whom do you trust? Not us.”

  1. Spaceman Avatar
    Spaceman

    Consider the proportional decline;
    Confidence in Congress has “plunged” much worse than that for Bush. 27% drop for Congress compared to 15% drop for Bush.
    Confidence in newspapers has fallen 24%. So it is better characterized as a sharp nosedive rather than merely a decline. Confidence in TV has likewise nosedived by 22%.
    Trust in Bush is twice that of Congress, and considerably higher than that of MSM newspapers and TV.
    Inspite of story-on-story criticism of the military at Git-mo and Abu Gahrib, confidence in the military remains extremely high.
    Since we are relying on the media for this article, it is fair to assign the story about the same confidence rating as MSM (TV/newspaper). So the no-cofidence rating for this story is ~ 70%.

  2. jdw Avatar
    jdw

    “Confidence in news media — newspaper and TV — has reached an all-time low in Gallup’s survey of trust in institutions.”
    How can we feel confidence in news media if the news media world is literally blowing up with information about Lindsay Lohan’s receding cleavage, and not nearly enough about the Drowning Street Memo. But we made it that way — because the Danielle Steele version of news is just so much easier to digest, goes down like an eel.

  3. SloppyDawg Avatar
    SloppyDawg

    It’s kind of hard to have confidence in TV news when clowns like Bill O’Reilly – who pulls stuff like this – are on the air.

  4. Fearfactor Avatar
    Fearfactor

    Or Aaron Brown.

  5. Clifford Avatar
    Clifford

    It’s hard to have confidence in a president who so obviously avoids answering questions; and in MSM that is afraid to challenge the establishment; and in a congress that has lost the ability to think of the good of the country. Do the numbers really matter?