http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/ameri ... w-low.aspx

This is not surprising given the overt bias from media sources like CNN, MSNBC, Politico, The Guardian, the LA & New York Times.

Secondary online news sources (ie MotherJones, Slate, Vox, Huffington Post, etc.) have become propaganda outlets, with near zero objectivity.

Add to this the groupthink bubbles easily created by social media filtering, you get a nation of political ideological automatons that no longer have the intellectual courage or ability to think for themselves.

We can't blame anyone for losing trust in the media.

yeah, couldn't agree more ant.

if they'd stop lying and spinning and generally being the propaganda pie makers they are they might get somewhere but i think they'll have a hard time regaining the trust they've lost.

Then we have, of course, the current occupant of the W.H. fulminating against the "very, very dishonest media" whenever he doesn't like something written or said about him. No doubt the Pres has influenced public opinion on media approval. The root of his complaint, though he wouldn't say this, is that a free press exists. Part of the function of the press is to practice accountability journalism. Many of those in power have not liked this when applied to them, though applied to opponents it's a different story. Long live the Watergate reporters, Woodward and Bernstein.

There have always been media outlets with low journalistic standards. It doesn't take a genius to know which ones to avoid if you don't want unprofessional bias. A great many people these days seem to want either a liberal or conservative orientation, though, which they can find on TV news. To these folks, the bias is all on the other side.

I don't watch any cable news and get all of my news mainly from one newspaper, NPR, and very occasionally from PBS. Stick to newspapers, would be my advice. The political sympathies are more easily sequestered to the editorials and op eds.

There are plenty of good news outlets: NPR, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The San Francsico Examiner, and USA Today come to mind. The narrative being spun by the right wing is that our news media has an overwhelmingly liberal bias, but I challenge anyone to find a news story in the New York Times that is factually incorrect. I mean, sure the paper's Op-Ed page might have a mostly liberal viewpoint, but the newspaper serves a largely metropolitan readership. In its news coverage, the NYT and the other newspapers I mentioned strive to be objective and stick to the facts. They succeed for the most part.

The right wing fringe wants you to believe that FoxNews and Breitbart are every bit as valid as mainstream news outlets, but this is simply not the case. FoxNews doesn't distinguish between news and opinion. It's mostly opinion masked as news. And instead of striving to provide fair and unbiased news coverage, both Foxnews and Breitbart serve as antidotes to the heavy liberal bias they perceive in mainstream papers. I feel sorry for those who can't tell the difference between news and propaganda.

Almost every day, we hear Trump saying "fake news" in response to news stories that he disagrees with. I think Trump is borderline illiterate anyway. He serves as a very poor example of a discerning news consumer. His "tweets" show the depth of his thinking.

I commente about the overt bias of certain news sources and listed the NY Times. I did not say they were "factually incorrect" or fake news generators.

They (NY times) are actually unabashedly biased and proved it by openly endorsing Clinton and by going after Sanders.
Even the left wing nuts at Salon tracked their mini campaign against Sanders:

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/16/new_yor ... r_sanders/

It does not promote public trust for a major news source to be so openly partisan. The NY TIMES is just that.
I can find more examples.
No one here denies sources like Breitbart have their own partisan agenda.

ant wrote:I commente about the overt bias of certain news sources and listed the NY Times. I did not say they were "factually incorrect" or fake news generators.

They (NY times) are actually unabashedly biased and proved it by openly endorsing Clinton and by going after Sanders.
Even the left wing nuts at Salon tracked their mini campaign against Sanders:

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/16/new_yor ... r_sanders/

It does not promote public trust for a major news source to be so openly partisan. The NY TIMES is just that.
I can find more examples.
No one here denies sources like Breitbart have their own partisan agenda.

I wasn't initially arguing with your comments, Ant. A newspaper's endorsement of a candidate is a long tradition and, importantly, is placed on the op-ed page. So when someone blasts a paper like the New York Times for being liberal, are they talking about the op-ed page or the newspaper's coverage of news events. It's important to draw that distinction, I think. When right wing pundits brand a newspaper as "liberal" they are not only trying to poison the well, but to lend legitimacy to their own biased news coverage.

Here's the NYT's endorsement of Hillary Clinton. It very clearly says "Opinion" at the top of the page.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opin ... .html?_r=0

Neither the Huffington Post or Salon are credible news sources in my opinion, although that doesn't necessarily render all content as invalid. We must use context to understand the slant of any source. Most of the content we are exposed to is simply superficial, not necessarily partisan.

I'll tell you one GREAT way to get the media to do their job and that is to get elected president and then go to war with them and call them fake news. They will gather EVERYTHING they can dig up about you and now all the stops are out, all the gloves are off, no more covering anybody's ass--they will take you down. They will hammer you relentlessly. They will not let the unpleasant stories die but will whip new life into them until the public thinks about nothing else.

Of course, also going to war with your own intelligence community will really help the media to do their job because now the spies will share the intelligence with the media rather than the president (and, yes, that IS already happening). This helps the media report the facts without those facts being fluffed and spun into meaninglessness before ever being released to the public which results in a better-informed public.

And going to war with members of your own party is also a fantastic way to help the media do a better job because none of those people are going to waste two seconds covering that person's ass and running interference for him. Instead they leak what juicy tidbits of knowledge that reaches them and that is A LOT of tidbits because they are in the very position they need to be in to get those tidbits. They hear EVERYTHING. Nothing goes on in the White House that they don't know about.

So let us thank Donald Trump for doing what few presidents in my lifetime have been able to achieve--to get the media to do their damn job!

Geo,

Thanks for clarifying.

Actually the very point I'm making is essentially echoed in your comments. We both agree the NY TIMES is biased. It does not matter if their bias slant appears in the Opinion columns. The slant exists, with no real offer of balance.

Frankly I'd say their Political columns are not merely examples of bias, they are poetic love sonnets to the political left.

Here's an excerpt from a POLITICAL column in the NY Times that has an usually erotica and near horney tone. It boggles the mind how anyone would think the NY Times is not on a mission to recruit every single human being that reads its journalism.

The rain grows heavier. Her wet clothes turn a shade darker. She cracks a wide smile. She takes in the scene around her and laughs before she finishes her sentence.

She’s drenched now, her voice hoarse. The storm is mussing her hair. It’s time to leave the stage. But just before doing so, she turns and raises both arms, giving herself up to the storm and the moment — and the looming end of this adventure.

Can't link it on my mobile phone. Google "In 1 unscripted moment, Hillary Clinton finds joy in the rain"
It's a NYT political column.

This is beyond bias.. it's a blatant lascivious love affair that a news agency is shamelessly flaunting for the world to see.
It's an example of how pathetic journalism in the country has become: a cheering over affair with the left, with zero objectivity.

So is it really such a paen to HC to say that for one time only she lets drop the "cautious stagecraft that surrounds and inhibits her?" I'm not seeing where this supports your complaint, let alone serves as a brush that tars the whole paper.

My argument that the media is filled with biased journalism? Of course it is. I can link all day from CNN, MSNBC, NYT, LAT, POLITICO, and on and on.
Is there a trust issue?
Are you dismissing the Gallup poll?
Perhaps you would indeed because the media's slant is confirmation bias for you.