By Free Republic | Created at 2024-11-02 14:01:10 | Updated at 2024-11-02 16:26:39
2 hours ago
The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media (now out from behind the paywall)
WaPo ^ | 10/28/2024 | Jeff Bezos
Posted on 11/02/2024 6:54:19 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.
Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.
Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.
,,,
While I do not and will not push my personal interest, I will also not allow this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance — overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs — not without a fight. It’s too important. The stakes are too high. Now more than ever the world needs a credible, trusted, independent voice, and where better for that voice to originate than the capital city of the most important country in the world? To win this fight, we will have to exercise new muscles.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS:
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1 posted on 11/02/2024 6:54:19 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
To: All
This is no longer behind the paywall for my browser and I hope you have the same access that my browser does.
2 posted on 11/02/2024 6:55:53 AM PDT by RoosterRedux (Thinking is difficult. And painful. That’s why many people just adopt ideologies.)
To: RoosterRedux
Half must be. How else could one explain an idiot and a pedo polling anywhere above 10%?
To: RoosterRedux
We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement.
From this statement, Bezos is implying what WaPo reports is accurate, but the real problem is that it is not believed.
Bezos is simply continuing the con game.
To: RoosterRedux
How ironic that Bezos uses elections and voting machines as the example for trust. Our confidence in them might be WORSE than congress and the media.
5 posted on 11/02/2024 6:59:19 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“President Trump sells out Madison Square Garden -- Kamala sells out America”)
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