Media Mistrust

There seems to be those entities that people have an inherent mistrust of attorneys, government, and now apparently, the media.

A recent story on NPR discusses how viewers are becoming less trusting of news organizations. The NPR story quotes a study performed by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

The survey was conducted with 1,506 people in July 2009. In that sampling just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate.

Conversely,  he poll finds that television remains the dominant news source for the public, with 71% saying they get most of their national and international news from television. More than four-in-ten (42%) say they get most of their news on these subjects from the internet, compared with 33% who cite newspapers.

Last December, for the first time in a Pew Research Center survey, more people said they got most of their national and international news from the internet than said newspapers were their main source.

Those who identified themselves as Fox News viewers were more critical of what they considered a media bias.

Though the public is increasingly critical of news media organizations, most people think it would be an important loss if major news sources shut down.

As we've discussed in the COMM 630 class, people tend to gravitate toward those outlets that share their views.