The following is an excerpt from Gallup
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' confidence in two facets of the news media -- newspapers and television news -- has fallen to all-time low points. Just 16% of U.S. adults now say they have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers and 11% in television news. Both readings are down five percentage points since last year.
Gallup has tracked Americans' confidence in newspapers since 1973 and television news since 1993 as part of its annual polling about major U.S. institutions. The latest readings are from a June 1-20 poll that saw declines in confidence ratings for 11 of the 16 institutions measured and no improvements for any.
Television news and newspapers rank nearly at the bottom of that list of institutions, with only Congress garnering less confidence from the public than TV news. While these two news institutions have never earned high confidence ratings, they have fallen in the rankings in recent years.
Read more here:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/394817/media-confidence-ratings-record-lows.aspx
Why not? The calendar says it's 2922, but it's actually 1984.
I've been skeptical of major news media for a long time. They often get local non-political stories wrong, not just political ones. That said, the political ideology slant is much more apparent today. It is especially dangerous as well. The obvious case in point is the censoring of the Hunter Biden laptop story just before the election. I doubt if Biden would be president today if they hadn't censored that news.
The Fairness Doctrine needs to be reinstated in some meaningful way. The argument that it isn’t necessary due to the plethora of news sources leads us to where we are. If no news source needs to present counter-arguments, leading to some objectivity, then the reader, who relies on single source, and typically a source with which he/she identifies, is confronted with only that “slant.” We become a nation of compartmentalized individuals, not knowing other opinions/facts, not knowing objective reasoning. It is “divide and conquer”, diverting attention away from important matters such as unsustainable unsound federal policy.
The drop in confidence in the press seems to have coincided with its sharp turn to the left in recent years, especially when the masks came off after the rise of Donald Trump as a major political force.
Leftist ideology explicitly rejects the ideas of objectivity, neutrality, fairness, even truth. The effect on journalism is predictable: (1) gaslighting; (2) groupthink; (3) censorship; (4) partisanship; and (5) elitism.
In recent years, the MSM have spent a lot of energy telling us what we CAN'T ask or CAN'T say:
we can't investigate election fraud and other election irregularities - "baseless conspiracy theory"
we can't criticize the claims of transgenders and "non-binary" people - "transphobia"
we can't criticize Islam - "Islamophobia"
we can't criticize female or minority Democrat politicians - "racist"/"sexist"
we can't question anthropogenic global warming - "climate denier"
we can't criticize explicit sexual content in school curricula for young children - "homophobia"
we can't criticize open borders - "racist"
we can't criticize CRT - "racist"
we can't criticize the Deep State, CIA, or FBI - "Russian disinformation"
we can't oppose escalating the war in the Ukraine - "Russian disinformation"
we can't criticize China - "racism"/"xenophobia"
we can't ask questions about January 6th (Ray Epps etc.) - "baseless conspiracy theory"
we can't attend school board meetings and express our views - "domestic terrorism"