Widespread Public Distrust of Mainstream Media

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STEPHEN LENDMAN

stephen-lendmanAmericans have little faith in so-called major media news and information, a collective lying machine by any standard, suppressing what’s most important to report, substituting managed news misinformation rubbish. 

CBS' Scott Pelley gravelly reciting the reasons to hate Assad. Except he's got the wrong guy. The people who caused this child's tragedy are not in Damascus but Washington, London, Tel Aviv, Paris—and Ryadh, of course. But the corporate media will never admit that basic fact.

CBS’ Scott Pelley gravelly reciting the reasons to hate Assad. Except he’s got the wrong guy. The people who caused this child’s tragedy are not in Damascus but Washington, London, Tel Aviv, Paris—and Ryadh, of course. But the corporate media will never admit that basic fact.

Gallup and other polls show Americans’ trust in mass media around an all-time low. A new American Press Institute (API) report said around half of respondents surveyed expressed “some confidence” in media reporting, over 40% virtually none, API saying:

“Over the last two decades, research shows the public has grown increasingly skeptical of the news industry. The study reaffirms that consumers do value broad concepts of trust like fairness, balance, accuracy, and completeness. At least two-thirds of Americans cite each of these four general principles as very important to them.”

Social media changed how many Americans get news and information. Only 12% trust what they get. TV news combines travesty and farce. Why anyone wastes time watching they’ll have to explain. Truth is a scarce commodity, in times of war the first casualty.

Instead of news and views to trust, the public is fed lies, damn lies and Big Lies – along with demagoguery, scandal, gossip, sleaze and war-mongering. The percent of Americans with great trust in major media is less than one in ten. Believers should be asked to explain why they trust a notorious lying machine.

The best way to defeat media scoundrels is tune them out, stopping buying their publications. Trust only reliable alternative sources, independent ones – free from dirty corporate money and handouts from their foundations.

About the author
Screen Shot 2016-02-19 at 10.13.00 AMSTEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."  ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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