5 ms·

Media trust hits new low across the political spectrum

19 points by bilsbie 1y ago

ratelimitsteve 1y ago
I mean, we know for sure that they collaborate with the elites to manage the messaging they send to us because we have an email from Hillary Clinton instructing the media as to how they were to cover Donald Trump's first presidential campaign. If you manipulate people you may succeed once but you'll be the guy who manipulates people for the rest of forever, and that's how it should be.
- gruez 1y ago
  >because we have an email from Hillary Clinton instructing the media as to how they were to cover Donald Trump's first presidential campaign Source? A cursory check suggests you're talking about the Podesta email leaks, but that was an internal campaign email for talking points to be used against their opponents, which probably every other political campaign does. Am I missing something?
  - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clin... >We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously. It's the "tell the press to take them seriously" that's the giveaway here.
    - gruez 1y ago
      So to summarize, there was an internal campaign memo discussing their strategy when communicating with the media. That's... exactly what I'd expect from a political campaign? Do you expect political campaigns to be running around like headless chickens with everyone ad libing their interviews? Yes, there's "instructing the media", but only insofar as telling their campaign's narrative, which again I'd expect all political campaigns to do. Maybe if there was actual emails of the Clinton campaign strongarming media organizations to adopt their positions there would be a scandal, but the fact that the strongest evidence seems to be an internal campaign memo suggests no such emails exist.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > we have an email from Hillary Clinton instructing the media If such an email was leaked then it should be easy to at least find a link to share for a claim like this. Regardless, “the media” isn’t one big block of people who conspire together to say the same thing as instructed by “the elites”. This is conspiratorial thinking crossed with class warfare ideology.
  - ratelimitsteve 1y ago
    https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/56629/15572 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/56629/15572 The full text https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clin... the context
- praptak 1y ago
  "Collaborate"? They are owned by the elites. The elites just tell them what to write and you don't need a half baked conspiracy theory based on some leaked emails to tell that. It's in plain sight: '''Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has announced that the newspaper's opinion section will focus on supporting “personal liberties and free markets", and pieces opposing those views will not be published.'''
- RickJWagner 1y ago
  Good example. Or consider the treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Several large media producers intentionally turned a blind eye to that story, as it was breaking at a crucial time in the 2020 election. It was an influential act, but now forever more those media producers must deal with the shame and provable bias. Tricky times.
incomingpain 1y ago
1998, lets say that's healthy. ~50% trust from everyone. It has been in steady decline since. The only blame here is with the media itself. That's it. Dont look anywhere else.
- gruez 1y ago
  >The only blame here is with the media itself. That's it. Dont look anywhere else. Really? The divergence in 2016 suggests it was also caused by partisanship on the part of media consumers. While it might be tempting to blame republicans for the divergence, the fact that there was a sudden spike for democrats suggest it was purely partisanship, similar to how different parties' perception of the economy diverges depending on whether their party is in power or not. https://d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net/prod/f95cdc90-9075-11ee-b16b-7b714096dfd1-standard.png https://d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net/prod/f95cdc90-9075-11ee...
  - incomingpain 1y ago
    >eally? The divergence in 2016 suggests it was also caused by partisanship on the part of media consumers. I read this in the article, but 2016 means nothing to me. The problem clearly pre-existed 2016. Feel free to blame the customer, but that's not going to fix anything. The media have to fix itself.
- disambiguation 1y ago
  There are no politically neutral institutions anymore, is the more general issue. "You're either with us, or against us." It becomes less about doing a good job and more about playing for the team.
- tzs 1y ago
  You don't think the massive increase in the amount of time people spend reading social media over that period could have had anything to do with it?
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
onewheeltom 1y ago
So, the Republicans don’t trust Fox News?
- gruez 1y ago
  There's probably some element of "I trust my media, but not the media as a whole" at play, similar to how approval ratings for congress as a whole is terrible, but approval ratings for each district's congressman is decent.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  Conservative news outlets and podcasters have been very good at convincing their listeners that they are not “mainstream media”. You will see Fox News and Joe Rogan referring to mass media as the other, bad news outlets.
- bilsbie 1y ago
  Most non boomers don’t actually.
- RickJWagner 1y ago
  Center/right voter here. lol, no I do not trust Fox. But I surely do not trust the others, either. I think the most important thing we can say to ourselves when reading news is to say “Why am I being told this?”
Aurornis 1y ago
The survey specially uses the phrase “mass media” which has become toxic. The catch is that most people now think “mass media” or “mainstream media” refers to the news content that other people consume, but not their own sources. This is why you can find Joe Rogan complaining about the mainstream media to great effect with his audience, who seemingly don’t realize that having a 9-figure Spotify deal and an audience with 50 million downloads per month makes him more mainstream that those journalists that Joe Rogan is always telling them not to trust.
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45453257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45453257

19 points by bilsbie 1y ago

I mean, we know for sure that they collaborate with the elites to manage the messaging they send to us because we have an email from Hillary Clinton instructing the media as to how they were to cover Donald Trump's first presidential campaign. If you manipulate people you may succeed once but you'll be the guy who manipulates people for the rest of forever, and that's how it should be.

gruez 1y ago
>because we have an email from Hillary Clinton instructing the media as to how they were to cover Donald Trump's first presidential campaign Source? A cursory check suggests you're talking about the Podesta email leaks, but that was an internal campaign email for talking points to be used against their opponents, which probably every other political campaign does. Am I missing something?
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago
  https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clin... >We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously. It's the "tell the press to take them seriously" that's the giveaway here.
  - gruez 1y ago
    So to summarize, there was an internal campaign memo discussing their strategy when communicating with the media. That's... exactly what I'd expect from a political campaign? Do you expect political campaigns to be running around like headless chickens with everyone ad libing their interviews? Yes, there's "instructing the media", but only insofar as telling their campaign's narrative, which again I'd expect all political campaigns to do. Maybe if there was actual emails of the Clinton campaign strongarming media organizations to adopt their positions there would be a scandal, but the fact that the strongest evidence seems to be an internal campaign memo suggests no such emails exist.
Aurornis 1y ago
> we have an email from Hillary Clinton instructing the media If such an email was leaked then it should be easy to at least find a link to share for a claim like this. Regardless, “the media” isn’t one big block of people who conspire together to say the same thing as instructed by “the elites”. This is conspiratorial thinking crossed with class warfare ideology.
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago
  https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/56629/15572 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/56629/15572 The full text https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clin... the context
praptak 1y ago
"Collaborate"? They are owned by the elites. The elites just tell them what to write and you don't need a half baked conspiracy theory based on some leaked emails to tell that. It's in plain sight: '''Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has announced that the newspaper's opinion section will focus on supporting “personal liberties and free markets", and pieces opposing those views will not be published.'''
RickJWagner 1y ago
Good example. Or consider the treatment of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Several large media producers intentionally turned a blind eye to that story, as it was breaking at a crucial time in the 2020 election. It was an influential act, but now forever more those media producers must deal with the shame and provable bias. Tricky times.

incomingpain 1y ago

1998, lets say that's healthy. ~50% trust from everyone. It has been in steady decline since. The only blame here is with the media itself. That's it. Dont look anywhere else.

gruez 1y ago
>The only blame here is with the media itself. That's it. Dont look anywhere else. Really? The divergence in 2016 suggests it was also caused by partisanship on the part of media consumers. While it might be tempting to blame republicans for the divergence, the fact that there was a sudden spike for democrats suggest it was purely partisanship, similar to how different parties' perception of the economy diverges depending on whether their party is in power or not. https://d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net/prod/f95cdc90-9075-11ee-b16b-7b714096dfd1-standard.png https://d6c748xw2pzm8.cloudfront.net/prod/f95cdc90-9075-11ee...
- incomingpain 1y ago
  >eally? The divergence in 2016 suggests it was also caused by partisanship on the part of media consumers. I read this in the article, but 2016 means nothing to me. The problem clearly pre-existed 2016. Feel free to blame the customer, but that's not going to fix anything. The media have to fix itself.
disambiguation 1y ago
There are no politically neutral institutions anymore, is the more general issue. "You're either with us, or against us." It becomes less about doing a good job and more about playing for the team.
tzs 1y ago
You don't think the massive increase in the amount of time people spend reading social media over that period could have had anything to do with it?
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago

onewheeltom 1y ago

So, the Republicans don’t trust Fox News?

gruez 1y ago
There's probably some element of "I trust my media, but not the media as a whole" at play, similar to how approval ratings for congress as a whole is terrible, but approval ratings for each district's congressman is decent.
Aurornis 1y ago
Conservative news outlets and podcasters have been very good at convincing their listeners that they are not “mainstream media”. You will see Fox News and Joe Rogan referring to mass media as the other, bad news outlets.
bilsbie 1y ago
Most non boomers don’t actually.
RickJWagner 1y ago
Center/right voter here. lol, no I do not trust Fox. But I surely do not trust the others, either. I think the most important thing we can say to ourselves when reading news is to say “Why am I being told this?”

Aurornis 1y ago

The survey specially uses the phrase “mass media” which has become toxic. The catch is that most people now think “mass media” or “mainstream media” refers to the news content that other people consume, but not their own sources. This is why you can find Joe Rogan complaining about the mainstream media to great effect with his audience, who seemingly don’t realize that having a 9-figure Spotify deal and an audience with 50 million downloads per month makes him more mainstream that those journalists that Joe Rogan is always telling them not to trust.

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45453257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45453257