Is it any wonder people think media is biased?
If you’re wondering why the public has a distrust of media in general, the two screen grabs posted above should explain it. The house panel released results of its two-year investigation into the Benghazi attacks. Depending on which source you look at, either Hillary Clinton was cleared of blame, or to be blamed.
Is it any wonder people think the media is biased?
It wasn’t just FOX News and CNN battling it out it. Check out the diversity of headlines I found in a 5-minute Google search.
Unfortunately, we’re in an era where people now get their news filtered through a specific viewpoint and that becomes fact for them. Wherever you are on the political scale, many find it difficult these days to find an unbiased view.
If we don’t agree with your viewpoint, you consider us biased
One of the problems we in the media face these days is that when we present news and it runs contrary to someone’s point of view, they say we’re biased.
Today, we ran the news story on our 11am newscast about the Benghazi report. We got one call saying we were too soft on Clinton and another that said we were too hard. For the record, we were neither. What we reported was the findings of the committee… in their own words. Mind you, this was a Republican committee and we used their words. So if we were too soft on Clinton, it wasn’t our reporting. But you can’t tell that to this woman, who said she watches every day:
“It makes me sad that when you report something, you don’t tell the whole facts. (The) Benghazi report found Clinton at fault and y’all like to admit fault for other people but not for her I find your news very biased and that makes me sad.” — Caller
I’m a little nervous just writing about this
It’s a good thing that journalists think about the political ramifications of a headline or a new story. It’s important for journalists to make sure their own political bias doesn’t seep through — even unintentionally. However, it’s gotten to the point sometimes that you get nervous writing about anything political because someone will say you’re in the tank for someone. I went over this posting several times to make sure I wasn’t out of balance for one side or another.
Media mis-trusts
The folks at Gallup have been surveying everything about American society for decades. One advantage to that is tracking how people think about key issues over time. This June, when they asked about people’s confidence in news media, the numbers hit an all-time low.
For media, over half of Americans express some level of confidence, but the percentage expressing a high level of confidence is down in the low 20’s.
The percentage with low confidence in media is now close to twice that rate.
Newspapers Lose Vote of Confidence from Young Adults, Democrats
This reflects a downturn in confidence that cuts across all age groups and party lines. Young adults and Democrats, who typically have shown solid positive marks for confidence in papers have now gone the other direction.
It’s the first time in Gallup’s surveys that more Democrats had low or no confidence rather than quite a bit or great deal of confidence in newspapers.
While the numbers were higher — and the question was asked differently — a 2015 Pew study shows similar results.
The view of news in general has become more negative.
Journalists are charged with being the gatekeepers and the watchdogs, holding our institutions, government, and politicans accountable.
But, A recent poll by Frank N. Magid also shows the credibility of the news media is at an all-time low.
38% can recall a specific recent incident that caused them to lose trust in a news source. The two most common problems were either instances of perceived bias or inaccuracies. — Frank N. Magid Survey
