The Majority of Americans Do Not Trust the Major Media

Are you willing to accept lies if it makes your life easier ? The major media are counting on you being complacent and apathetic about the world condition and your country's condition. For them the status quo is whatever the powers that be tell them it is. Are you this way ? When you hear a story from the major media how do you think it was meant to be received?

That preconditioning is important to them, and moreso to you, the listener. If you think the major media ( also now called the old media, thanks to the world wide web ) is a great place to hear a fair and balanced view of the world's news, the statistics will show you are in the minority. Indeed, the fact that you are here reading this on the internet is a good sign. It means you look in other places besides the major media for the unreported facts you can find only on the web.

The statistics from a harris poll in 2004 showed that nearly three to one, Americans did not trust the press. Fifty eight per cent in the United States did not trust television. These were people eighteen and over. A gallup survey from 1976 showed a whopping seven out of ten Americans trusted news organizations.

What happened ? Going from seventy per cent to thirty per cent is a free fall most businesses could not withstand, yet the news media and media in general are showing no signs of letting up. It sounds funny to hear of CNN doing a survey that finds a majority of Americans "will not trust the upcoming report" in September on the situation in Iraq, when CNN itself is not trusted by the majority of Americans !

More statistics from the pew research center also confirm that the public trust of the major media has been getting weaker. Many Americans do not think press coverage is even accurate, must less trustworthy. With sensationalism running rampant in the major media, such as what happened with O.J. Simpson, Jon Benet and others, people have to go somewhere else to find relevant national news that applies to their lives. In a nation that no longer trusts what they see hear or read, credibility becomes hard to regain.

If the opinions of the major media come from exceptional journalistic ability and deep editorial wisdom, why then the mistrust ? Is it because of the relatively few who own the major media outlets ? Just this year important financial news agencies were centralized under an even fewer number of powerful people. This is simillar to AT and T reacquiring BellSouth which also happened this year. The ominous term "media mogul" is becoming a negative byword, and a growing threat to the journalist who simply wants to get the truth out. The web has no such limitations.

If a journalist wants to report news on his own blog, he can do so without fear of losing a job. In this atmosphere that the web has given to those with internet access, it is imperative that the truth seeker learn good search engine skills. Just going to the news section at a major search engine is not enough to find out the full world or national news that would affect a person who just wants a unopionated view. But for now, its better than listening to the major media.

The larger percentage of Americans who do not trust the major media will more than likey grow. I am hoping that freelance journalism will more fully embrace the new medium of the web, ( and the mobile web ) soon, and restore the confidence people have in what will be the next formation of a superior media system.