No Confidence Vote
The Gallup Organization, the noted polling company founded long ago by Iowan George Gallup, annually assesses the level of confidence the American people have in various media outlets.
In a sign of our times that surprises no one, our confidence in both newspapers and television news has fallen to all-time low points.
Only 16 percent of U.S. adults say they currently have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers…and only 11 percent feel that way about television news. And that’s a significant drop, down 5 points each from just a year ago.
Gallup has tracked newspapers in this way since 1973…and TV news since 1993…plenty long in each case. And it’s never been this bad. In fact, there’s no “on the other hand” or “here’s the bright side” in the numbers…of the 16 institutions measured, 11 saw a decline and the rest stayed the same…no improvements for any, according to Gallup.
To put it in perspective, currently only Congress is held in lower esteem than television news. Way to go, TV news…you barely edged out Congress in the “we have no confidence in you” sweepstakes.
Over the time of the surveys, the average or trend line is roughly double the current numbers…so again, that’s a huge sign of trouble for those legacy media outlet.
You have to be careful not to rely totally on such surveys; it’s sort of like the surveys that for years showed people hate Congress as a whole, yet love their member of Congress. Similarly, we’re almost conditioned to distrust the media, yet the same people who admit to that still rely regularly on one or two sources they do trust.
But overall, the trend is disturbing for two entities that rely on trust in order to garner an audience…and that rely on an audience in order to secure advertising dollars and make a profit.
