The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Where should a wary public turn for reliable information?

Too bad it’s not working out to try turning the clock back to the 20th century to trust in newspapers and television news.

The Gallup Poll became the gold standard for public opinion back then, as The New York Times became the national newspaper of record.

But we’ve crossed that Rubicon now, and there’s no going back.

For young people and those not steeped in history from studying in the 20th century, the phrase “crossing the Rubicon” is an idiom that means passing a point of no return. Its meaning comes from an allusion to the crossing of the River Rubicon by Julius Caesar in 49 BC, which precipitated a civil war and led to Caesar becoming dictator for life (dictator perpetuo).

He had been appointed to a governorship over southern Gaul. But as his term was ending, the Senate ordered Caesar to disband his army and return to Rome. It was illegal to bring armies into Italy. The River Rubicon marked the northern border of Italy. Crossing the river under arms was synonymous with insurrection, treason and a declaration of war on the state. He is said to have uttered the phrase alea iacta est (“the die is cast”) as he ordered the crossing.

These days, when I open the Gallup poll email and see what’s being reported, I find the numbers somewhat useful, but the analysis nearly useless. I don’t know who is writing this stuff, but I suspect it’s kids being trained in the old fashioned way, like they did things in the 20th century.

The sensational headline is that public confidence in newspapers and television news has fallen to an all time low point.

Only 16 percent of adults in the U.S. now say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers and only 11 percent say the same thing about television news. Both readings are down five percentage points since last year.

But what does this really mean?

Television news and newspapers rank nearly at the bottom of a list of American institutions people say they no longer trust. Only Congress is viewed with less confidence than TV news.

“While these two news institutions have never earned high confidence ratings, they have fallen in the rankings in recent years,” Gallup says.

But I wonder if anyone working at Gallup even reads a newspaper in print anymore? I doubt it. And when they ask about TV news, what do they mean? Broadcast channels with FCC licenses? Or simply cable TeeVee news talk shows?

What are these questions really about? Do they even know?

Have you seen what’s happened to newspapers across the country over the past 20 years? The ones that are still being printed and delivered are shadows of their former selves, now mostly owned by the Gatehouse Media chain parading under the Gannet name, or online news sites or blogs pretending to be the new versions of old newspapers, like blog dot al dot com in Alabama, put out by the same Newhouse company that used to make a fortune printing The Birmingham News and The Mobile Press and Register. (Forget The Huntsville Times. It never was worth a damn, an odd fact in a fairly progressive city with all that space science going on).

And lets face facts. In the entire history of public opinion polling, a majority of Americans only expressed confidence in newspapers once. And it was barely a majority of 51 percent, and that was 1979, about the time of the Iran hostage crises when Ronald Reagan and Bill Casey convinced the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election, so Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter in the presidential election of 1980. That was the first so-called “October surprise.”

The second-highest confidence readings for newspapers came in at 39 percent in 1973 (when The Washington Post was breaking news about Nixon and Watergate and The New York Times had reported on the Pentagon Papers documenting the government lies about the war in Vietnam) and in 1990 (about the time of the Arms for Hostages Scandal, before the internet become publicly available).

Gallup says the average confidence rating for newspapers over time stands at 30 percent, well above the latest reading of 16 percent, “which is the first time the measure has fallen below 20 percent.”

Clearly the public has little trust in getting news from newspapers. In addition to the free fall in quantity and quality of newspapers, might that also have something to do with Steve Bannon and Donald Trump calling what they report “fake news?”

Check out the partisan comparisons below.

But first, what are we to make of the lack of confidence in television news, which reached its zenith in public confidence at 46 percent in 1993, about the time CNN was the only news outlet with reporters still in country in Iraq after the U.S. military invaded to get Saddam Hussein’s troops out of Kuwait.

Gallup is finding that only 11 percent of the public say they trust news coming through the television screen. This is the fourth year that confidence in TV news fell below 20 percent.

Could that be because of the Trump pounding they took for five years from the campaign trail and the White House, or how many stories they have blown over the past couple of decades? Maybe it’s their crappy websites full of sensational clickbait, sponsored content and popup ads? Or could people be talking about the false news continually reported on Fox, or the biased, partisan news on MSNBC?

Whatever it is, a majority of Americans, 53 percent, now say they have very little or no confidence at all in TV news.

Of course Republicans’ say they have the least confidence. Apparently only 5 percent of Republicans know how to read a newspaper anyway. Only 12 percent of people who claim to be political independents say they have confidence in the information being reported by newspapers. These are the lowest numbers ever recorded for these party groups.

But then only 35 percent of Democrats say they have confidence in the information printed in newspapers, or maybe they are also talking about the information on newspaper websites. That number rose to between 42 and 46 percent during the Trump years, but fell again when President Joe Biden took office when news circulation on television and online dropped precipitously as people got vaccinated for Covid and took a break from the news. There was a huge, collective sigh of relief that at least the Trump train Twitter shit show was over.

And guess what? People don’t trust pollsters and pundits anymore either, after what happened in 2016.

Related: How the Pollsters and Pundits Are Misleading People Again, Just Like 2016: Don’t Buy It

But just for the heck of it, let’s look at the latest Gallup conclusion in quotes. Tell me if this gives you confidence, or not.

Gallup’s Bottom Line

“Multiple Gallup measures of Americans’ views of the news media show a growing distrust,” Gallup says about its survey research results. “Last fall, Gallup found near-record-low trust in the media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, and few Americans rated newspaper and television reporters as highly ethical in Gallup’s annual honesty and ethics of professions poll in December. Although trust in the media in the U.S. has been scarce for many years, confidence ratings for newspapers and TV news have never been as low as they are now. Taken together, these data suggest that the media has a long way to go to win back the public’s confidence.”

What would Gallup have them do to get public confidence back? Fox reports what the conservatives want to see. MSNBC reports what the liberals want to see. Most people can’t afford to pay or don’t have time to read The New York Times or Washington Post online, and in fact, the act of reading at all is way down.

So people who can at least afford to pay for cable TV feel they can watch all the sensational news and find out what’s going on to some extent. Many now turn to Facebook or Twitter to see the headlines. In-depth reading is the province of a few old Baby Boomers like me. So I read the Times and the Post every day and share the important stories and write many of them myself, getting the news out on a readable website that is still free online with no paywall, no sponsored content and no popup ads.

Who are you going to trust?

Gallup has tracked Americans’ confidence in newspapers since 1973 and television news since 1993 as part of its annual polling about major U.S. institutions. The latest readings are from a June 1-20 poll that saw declines in confidence ratings for 11 of the 16 institutions measured, and no improvements for any of them. Clearly confidence in American democracy and institutions is at an all time low.

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