The graph at the end of the article truly surprised me.
I think Republicans and Independents (my kind of people) got it right. I am astounded that 58% of Democrats have, as the caption indicates, a "great deal/fair amount of trust and confidence in mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly".
Fully.
Accurately.
Fairly.
Are you kidding me? Either this chart is a joke, the Democrats they polled are morons or something else is wrong.
Nobody reports news fully. That's just a fact. It would be too time consuming and expensive.
Nobody reports news accurately. Again, very time consuming. In some cases you might have to wait weeks or more before all the data and evidence is available to be able to achieve a reasonable degree of accuracy.
It reminds me of a story. A black church was set ablaze one week before the 2016 presidential election. The words "Vote Trump" were painted on the side.
Now, being a thinking person, my first thought was: Only an absolute moron would think that doing this one week before the election would somehow benefit Trump. In other words, my mental "bullshit" alarm went up immediately. This, as it was reported, did not make sense at all.
The reporting, of course, was just as hot as the fire that burned down the church. It was an angry finger-pointing indignation fire-fest from nearly every angle. Politicians jumped on the stories and took to the streets to deliver equally furious speeches denouncing half the nation's voters for the racist thugs they obviously were. Etc.
Judge. Jury. Executioner.
Headlines, of course, delivered conclusions. They told you what you had to think:
https://www.salon.com/2016/11/02/vote-trump-spray-painted-on...
The FBI investigated.
The truth, as it turned out, was that no Trump voter was involved in this at all. Not even close. It was a disgruntled (black) church member.
https://apnews.com/article/52296e1ac72b4c699f5d2d1cad71461a
For these media organizations, "accurately" isn't in the dictionary. If it bleeds, it leads. Shock and awe. Whatever. They could not care less if what they reported was a complete lie.
Do you think they devoted the same effort and air time to let their audience know the truth? No! Of course not! It didn't fit the favored narrative at all.
Was this election interference or manipulation?
Of course it was! What's more powerful than a mindless racist thug Trump voter burning down a black church and adding a cherry on top in the form of "Vote Trump!" graffiti on the wall? It is hard to think of something more powerful than that one week before people are supposed to cast their votes. Nearly every media outlet pounded this news for days and delivered the conclusion into tens of millions of minds.
And they were lying. 100%. They lied for as long as they covered that story. And they could not care less.
Which brings me to "Fairly".
No, that does not exist at all. And to think that 58% of Democrats actually believe news is reported fairly is disturbing.
At least us independents are in the 30% range. That's probably healthy. Frankly, I am somewhere between that and the 11% quoted for Republicans. All news these days is politically-motivated propaganda. Has been for decades, but the race for clicks has made it worse. Much, much worse. Newsrooms have lost contact with the people of this nation. They live in a bubble where confirmation bias rules decision-making, and decisions are made along political party lines.
The end result: They are not news organizations, they are politically-focused creative lie dissemination organizations. They have political objectives. They pick a side and support that side. Reporting "fully, accurately and fairly" be damned.
I don't think the first amendment of the US Constitution was intended to protect a lying, manipulative, politically activist press. I have trouble believing that was the intent. It's almost like it need to be modified to only protect the delivery of verifiable truthful news. If you cannot verify what you are going to print, don't print it. Nobody needs fake news.
If you are in that 58%, you need to wake up to reality. You are being shown shadows on the wall within the cave you have been chained to. Take a walk. Go outside. See reality. It isn't easy. It takes work. And, yes, it's worth it. Otherwise, you might just end-up being led by the nose to have you think and believe what they want you to think and believe. Which is sad.
This excellent article, from 2017, really opened my eyes as to the root causes behind aspects of this issue:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bub...