Harris released one of their latest polls on the 6th and it showed that less than half the general American public trusts the press. With the state of the media today, this should come as no surprise to anyone. But, the numbers are pretty amazing when it is realized that 54% of those responding said they did not trust the press while 46% admitted that they don't trust television news either. The Internet fared better with 41% saying that they trust what they see there with only 34% saying they do not trust the web for their news.
But, the really interesting news with this poll is the wide disparity between Democrats and Republicans where it concerns their trust in the media. It seems that Democrats are far more trusting in the media in nearly every category than are Republicans. (Independents trusted the media even less, incidentally.)
According to Harris, the press is trusted by 43% of the Democrats polled but only by an anemic 19% of the Republicans contacted. Radio is trusted by 51% of Dems, and 45% of Repubs while TV is trusted by 50% of the Dems and only 31% of the GOPers. The Internet saw the two sides closer together with 45% of the Dems trusting what they find there and with 40% of the Republicans who also did.
Now, this should also come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the left slanted nature of the "news" that comes out of most of the media. With TV and the press firmly in the left's corner, it is not a shock to see few Republicans trusting what they see and hear from those sources. In fact, this poll pretty much serves as more proof of how far left most of the media is.
The poll also showed that the Internet is not yet a dominant news source for the general populace.
While the media has spent a great deal of effort enhancing their various websites, these are not where people are turning. One-third (32%) of Americans say they never go to the websites for national newspapers for political news while three in ten (30%) say they never go to the websites for the cable news stations when looking for political news. Looking at some other media, just over one-quarter (28%) say they turn to national newspapers such as The New York Times or USA Today for political news all the time or occasionally while the same number say they turn to weekly news magazines such as Newsweek or Time.
But, as the next part of the report goes on to say, the older generation sticks pretty exclusively to local TV news for most of their information. Once the Internet generation begins to get older, replacing this stubborn TV generation, who can doubt that the Internet will grow in importance for sources of news?
The final word of this survey is that the media isn't trusted by either side of the political divide, but that the left does trust their compatriots in the media a bit more than the rest of us do.