Okay, this is truly frightening

[novapsyche]

Republicans have come to distrust the media in greater numbers since President Bush took office, says a new poll released yesterday, while Democratic views are mostly unchanged.

Only about half as many Republicans as Democrats find the usual media suspects credible, says the Pew Research Center, including the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, U.S. News & World Report, CBS, ABC, NBC, National Public Radio and PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

"CNN's once-dominant credibility ratings have slumped in recent years, mostly among Republicans and independents," the survey says. "By comparison, the Fox News Channel's believability ratings have held steady -- both overall and within partisan groups."

Fewer Republicans Trust the News, Survey Finds

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Denial can be a powerful thing, especially when it comes to one's family. Many people would rather stick their heads in the sand and deny the truth right in front of them, than admit that things are disordered in their own house.

[blackwinterbyrd.livejournal.com]

Fox News? the anti-news? the slightly respectable Weekly World News? the most biased and suspiciosly slanted/selected lowest common denominator news? credible?

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

As I suspected before reading the article, the steady numbers for Fox pretty much indicate that the Republicans' growing distrust of the media is not tied to a growing distrust of Bush, but a backlash due to the Bush-negative items and/or outlook of the better news providers.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would say it goes back to the early '90s, after the Republicans swept the House. That was the time of Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing talk shows. That really altered the structure of the news--people came to believe that all news outlets have some political bias (when in fact the majority are moderate).

There is also this myth, perpetuated around that time, that the press is "liberal". You know, it's possible for liberals to be journalists--that much of the myth is substantiated--without letting their bias show through in their work. It's called being professional.

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

It started a little before, but yeah. That was also the time when "liberal" got turned into a really dirty word and in order to discredit something all the right-wingers had to do was point and shout "liberal."

Ack. That was a scary time. I had a friend who went from calling himself a liberal to starting every third sentence with "Rush said" in a space of two years.

Sometimes it seems as though the past decade has been training people how NOT to think, how to let someone else form opinions for them. And now that that events make it impossible to put a "feel-good" spin on any type of reporting, they just don't want to believe it. And if real life events don't fall into line, then of course it must be "media lies" to make their "side" look bad.