Gallup poll: how Americans really feel about the mainstream media

Nothing’s been pushing me harder to the right than a steady diet of CNN. They’re their own worst enemies.

…..and put stuff into the articles that is so transparently biased, it’s not even funny anymore. It was bad enough in the Clinton years when they’d simply quote him without asking any Republican about the matter, let alone fact-checking him, but now it extends to doing “fact-checking” with a “courtesy” of changing the question asked.

After about 16 years of getting my news from Google News, I decided to do a cheap digital subscription to a real, major newspaper with the resources to do its own original reporting. So, I subscribed to the New York Times earlier this week. I love it, and I may expand to an international paper (Times of London, perhaps?) later this year. Everyone has a bias, and you need to factor that in. I knew what I was getting, and I’m quite, quite pleased with the New York Times so far.

What a change from the tabloid-like articles Google News picked for me. What a refreshing change from the hyper-partisan madness of Fox News. The NYT has some opinion pieces that show bias, of course - it’s why they’re opinion pieces. But, their reporting (which is different than opinion pieces) is excellent.

I suspect folks who malign “the mainstream media” often don’t subscribe to the major papers. I suspect they’re likely getting their talking points from Hannity, Levin or any number of the other partisan hacks (on both sides; CNN anyone?) from television news. I just read an excellent NYT analysis piece on China’s naval ambitions yesterday. Where else can I find this kind of reporting? That’s why I decided to subscribe to the NYT.

It is interesting to see the breakdown of the numbers. I you want to understand bias just look at the percentages. I consider myself being moderately right and I do not take any media outlet at face value. I am not trusting of my local news sources but you do see bias at times in how they report.

I think we should consider that many, if not a majority, Americans don’t read or watch the MSM. Newspapers are dying, magazines are dead, and a scary amount of people believe the news they see and read on social media. Personally I check out Reuters daily. It used to be that news was about what, who, when, and where but the media’s view of “why” is what gets attention.