Public confidence down in media & other institutions
media statistics
Editor & Publisher has a good overview of the recent Gallup annual survey of "public confidence in major institutions" in the United States. Depressingly, public confidence in the media has reached an all-time low this year.
- Those having a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers dipped from 30% to 28% in one year, the same total for television. The previous low for newspapers was 29% in 1994. Since 2000, confidence in newspapers has declined from 37% to 28%, and TV from 36% to 28%, according to the poll.
However, some other institutions fared far worse this year, suggesting a broad level of distrust, cynicism or malaise.
Confidence in the presidency plunged from 52% to 44%, with Congress and the criminal-justice system also suffering 8% drops. Confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court fell from 46% to 41%. The 22% confidence rating for Congress is its lowest in eight years, and self-identified Republicans have only a slightly more positive view of the institution than do Democrats.
The military topped the poll with a 74% confidence rating, with the police at 63% and organized religion at 53%. Big business and Congress (both at 22%) and HMOs (17%) brought up the rear.
Looking at the newspaper numbers, of those surveyed, 24% say they have "very little" confidence in them, while 1% said "none." By far the highest number, 46%, said "some," with 28% expressing strong confidence.
posted by hdougie at 6/18/2005 10:27:00 AM
1 Comments:
I think it is too easy for people to discredit the media. We live in a world where information is in excess and journalists have the difficult job of sorting through it and making sense out of it. I do not believe that the average person could do any better. Perceptions are always going to affect the way people view events. Two people could witness the same event and remember two different stories. Is either one more right than the other? People who work in the media industries are only human and they will make mistakes just like every other profession. The only logical reason to assume that media personnel are less credible than other professions is to believe that those who work with the media are innately more corrupt than those who do not work in the media. Laws of probability lead me to believe this is not the case.
Samantha Hall
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