The American people are grasping the bias of mass media. When Gallup first asked Americans in 1972 “how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media,” 68 percent of polled individuals answered either a “great deal” or a “fair amount.” Over the ensuing decades this positive response has plummeted, garnering just 31 percent in the most recent polling conducted in September.
Indeed, this year’s Gallup poll results for the first time have each of the negative answers of “not very much” and “none at all” trust and confidence in the mass media more popular than the combined “great deal” and “fair amount” answers. “Not very much” was chosen by 33 percent of respondents. “Not at all” was the most popular response — offered by 36 percent of respondents.
Trust in the mass media is in the toilet, and with good reason. Alternative sources available on the internet have made it easier for Americans to learn the truth and thus realize that on issues from health to war to the economy to you name it the mass media is churning out misinformation. And this misinformation, it often turns out, is in line with the desire of government to expand its power and big companies to increase their profits.
No wonder the record distrust for the mass media; it has been earned. And no wonder government and big companies are so intent on censoring the communication of alternative information via the internet.
