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It is a myth that Americans ever had faith in the News (any more than they have had faith in Politics). For about 250 years (in the US), newspapers have been m

It is a myth that Americans ever had faith in the News (any more than they have had faith in Politics). For about 250 years (in the US), newspapers have been mostly political rags. They rose to popularity as a way for a single person or group to spread propaganda. Around 1900 they shifted from political rags to scandal-themed yellow journalism, and later turned more "professional", but never lost their slant towards ideologies, social/economic classes, trades, etc. The powerful have always controlled, influenced, and suppressed them. They've never been objective. We've thought about the news as entertainment for the last 50 years. The movie Network came out in 1976, and predicted the abandonment of "balanced" journalism and information in favor of entertainment and profit. We've also known that the news may be staged, selectively covered, biased, and have a leading agenda in the stories they cover and how they cover them. And I mean, come on: Editorials? Literally just a biased person shouting their biased opinions, as if they have the right to speak for every reader? The news has always been bullshit. Useful bullshit, but still bullshit. Anyone who thinks what they read is "true" doesn't understand the concept of truth.

fullshark 4y ago
Trend has been dramatic though: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.as... Great deal/Quite a lot Confidence in Newspapers went from about 35-40% in the 80s to about 22% today (COVID likely a major influence on 2022's 16% number). Very Little number also notable.
- 0xbadcafebee 4y ago
  Before Trump was elected, the polls predicted Hillary would win. Before Biden was elected, the polls predicted Trump would win. Polls can be manipulated, misconstrued, and simply poorly executed. Leading questions, doublebarreled questions, double negatives, question order, margin of error, misread data, "random" sampling, focus groups saying what you want to hear, flukes like a surge due to novelty, and more, all skew polls in ways that don't reflect reality. Polls are more shamanism than science. So why did the numbers change? The media has been telling us we shouldn't trust them for years, and people are reporting back what they've been told. It's also possible that when people say they "don't trust the news", what they really mean is they don't trust what's being reported - as in, if they're reading about politics, they don't trust the politics. You might suspect the newspaper is lying, or you might suspect Trump is lying - but either way, it's "the news" you don't trust, so you start to doubt the institution that's bringing you the lies.
  - timbit42 4y ago
    The problem with polls is they only show, assuming they are accurate, what percentage of people will vote a certain way. They don't indicate who will win. Due to the electoral college, many votes are effectively thrown out. This is the reason for the discrepancy. It would increase democracy in the US if the electoral college was eliminated. FiveThirtyEight.com uses polling data, but also looks at the electoral college, and accurately predicted that Trump could beat Hillary and that Biden could beat Trump, although the odds that Trump would beat Hillary were low, they did predict it was possible.
LarryMullins 4y ago
+1 for the movie Network. This is one everybody interested in the intersection of media and demagoguery should watch.

fullshark 4y ago

Trend has been dramatic though: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.as... Great deal/Quite a lot Confidence in Newspapers went from about 35-40% in the 80s to about 22% today (COVID likely a major influence on 2022's 16% number). Very Little number also notable.

0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Before Trump was elected, the polls predicted Hillary would win. Before Biden was elected, the polls predicted Trump would win. Polls can be manipulated, misconstrued, and simply poorly executed. Leading questions, doublebarreled questions, double negatives, question order, margin of error, misread data, "random" sampling, focus groups saying what you want to hear, flukes like a surge due to novelty, and more, all skew polls in ways that don't reflect reality. Polls are more shamanism than science. So why did the numbers change? The media has been telling us we shouldn't trust them for years, and people are reporting back what they've been told. It's also possible that when people say they "don't trust the news", what they really mean is they don't trust what's being reported - as in, if they're reading about politics, they don't trust the politics. You might suspect the newspaper is lying, or you might suspect Trump is lying - but either way, it's "the news" you don't trust, so you start to doubt the institution that's bringing you the lies.
- timbit42 4y ago
  The problem with polls is they only show, assuming they are accurate, what percentage of people will vote a certain way. They don't indicate who will win. Due to the electoral college, many votes are effectively thrown out. This is the reason for the discrepancy. It would increase democracy in the US if the electoral college was eliminated. FiveThirtyEight.com uses polling data, but also looks at the electoral college, and accurately predicted that Trump could beat Hillary and that Biden could beat Trump, although the odds that Trump would beat Hillary were low, they did predict it was possible.

LarryMullins 4y ago

+1 for the movie Network. This is one everybody interested in the intersection of media and demagoguery should watch.