Western Media Credibility In Free Fall Collapse

Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts

The latest from the Gallup Poll is that only 32% of Amerians trust the print and TV media to tell the truth. http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx
Republicans, 18 to 49 year old Americans, and independents trust the media even less, with trust rates of 14%, 26%, and 30%.

The only group that can produce a majority that still trusts the media are Democrats with a 51% trust rate in print and TV reporting. The next highest trust rate is Americans over 50 years of age with a trust rate of 38 percent.

The conclusion is that old people who are Democrats are the only remaining group that barely trusts the media. This mistaken trust is due to their enculturation. For older Democrats belief in government takes the place of Republican belief in evangelical Christianity. Older Democrats are firm believers that it was government under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that saved America from the Great Depression. As the print and TV media in the 21st century are firmly aligned with the government, the trust in government spills over into trust of the media that is serving the government. As the generation of Democrats enculturated with this mythology die off, Democratic trust rates will plummet toward Republican levels.

It is not difficult to see why trust in the media has collapsed. The corrupt Clinton regime, which we might be on the verge of repeating, allowed a somewhat diverse and independent media to be 90% acquired by six mega-corporations. The result was the disappearance of independence in reporting and opinion.

The constraints that corporate ownership and drive for profits put on journalistic freedom and resources reduced reporting to regurgitations of government and corporate press releases, always the cheapest and uncontroversial way to report.

With journalistic families driven out of journalism by estate taxes, the few remaining newspapers become acquisitions like a trophy wife or a collector Ferrari. Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of amazon.com, handed over $250 million in cash for the Washington Post. Jeff might be a whiz in e-commerce, but when it comes to journalism he could just as well be named Jeff Bozo.

On September 12, Washington Post reporter Cindy Boren dropped the Washington Post below the level of the supermarket tabloid, National Enquirer. One must wonder where her editor was. Drunk perhaps? The Washington Post actually reported that a Nigerian MD, Bennet Omalu, “whose credentials and tenacity are well known,” has concluded that Hillary Clinton’s obvious medical problems could be due to her being poisoned by a Putin-Trump conspiracy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/09/12/the-man-who-discovered-cte-thinks-hillary-clinton-may-have-been-poisoned/

One could possibly conclude that Cindy Boren and her Washington Post editor were having fun with Omalu, except that the article repeated the unfounded allegation that circumstantial evidence according to a UK inquiry associates Putin with the poisoning death of Litvinenko.

In other words, first Litvinenko, now Hillary.

If circumstantial evidence is to be the Washington Post’s guide, then clearly that evidence suggests that the neoconservatives, well-ensconced in high government positions and desperate for a New Pearl Harbor in order to launch their wars of hegemony in the Middle East, are responsible for 9/11.

Yet the Washington Post has a full-time reporter whose job is to disparage conspiracy theories while the Washington Post itself launches the conspiracy theory of the century: Putin And Trump Conspiracy Poisons US Democratic Candidate for President. http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/09/15/washington-post-grasps-crazy-conspiracy-theory-support-hillary-clinton.html

If intelligence, or perhaps simply sufficient time in Americans’ lives to investigate the news, were not in such short supply, possibly Americans would reflect on what the benefit is of being driven by Washington into conflict with Russia and China.

It most certainly will not be victory in war, as we all will be dead.


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6 Comments
starfcker the deplorable
starfcker the deplorable
September 17, 2016 4:44 pm

I saw a brilliant comment on another website on this exact subject. “THE INTERNET IS THE PRESS NOW”. And that guy (TejasRob at CTH) is exactly right.

Anonymous
Anonymous
September 17, 2016 7:46 pm

“The latest from the Gallup Poll is that only 32% of Amerians trust the print and TV media to tell the truth.”

Wonder why it took so long for the majority of the population to come to this realization.

I figured that out way back during the Clinton administration in his early first term. It became so obvious then that I didn’t understand why so many people still trusted them.

Big Dick
Big Dick
September 17, 2016 9:22 pm

Trust, Believe??? As Jack said “You can’t handle the truth.” There is not a person working for the government we can trust or believe. Not here, not there, not anywhere.

General
General
September 17, 2016 10:22 pm

Now we have even more proof that the Democrats are damn stupid.

51% of Democrats still trust the print and TV media.

49% don’t trust the print and TV media and are still democrats.

prusmc
prusmc
  General
September 18, 2016 9:34 am

Paul Craig:
The evidence seems to point to the Clinton clique wanting a showdown with Russia, expecting Putin to back down. This may make some sense, in their strategic view now that the Russins are not the massive forward deployed power house, waiting to pour through Fulda Gap, as they were in the 70’s and 80’s. Of course then they were a Marxist imperialist entity, so they had to be snuggled up to (Bill and Bernie’s visits to Moscow in the 60’s) and could not be referred to as evil.Now that they have become nationalistic and proud they are a threat. Apparently, their crony capitalists are a threat toUSSA’s croney social Marxist capitalist. Paul is incorrect about China, Peking bought the Clintons in the 90’s and the fix is still in place for fun and profit. I spent over 30 years perparing to fight the evil empire and becoming an eye opened former cold warrior was a shock only Clinton, Bush, Obama could deliver.