American culture has been experiencing an erosion of trust for some time, but a recent American Pulse Survey paints a bleak picture for politicians and the media. According to the survey of nearly 4,000 Americans, only 2.2% trust members of the Senate while 2.6% trust members of the House. Media doesn't do much better garnering trust from only 4.4% of Americans. Bloggers do slightly better with 5.8% and the President weighs in with a surprising 14.2%. Add them up and you find that there is still a lot of distrust out there...nearly 71% do not trust any of the above.
Another study (
Edelman) looked at the issue of trust worldwide and compared trust in various industries. In the US, the media were dead last...behind Technology, Pharmaceuticals, Automotive, Energy, Retail, Health Care...even Insurance.
So who do they trust? More and more it is defined as "people like me." Word-of-mouth from my peers is still a trusted source. How about you...who do you trust? And why do you think the media is so unworthy of the nation's trust?
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24 comments:
Howdy this is Betne McCoy----
I think that people trust in the media more than what they would like to believe. I think that we, as a society, think that no one can be trusted however we un-knowingly put them in positions of trust every day. An example would be a mother placing her young child infront of a TV and trusting that there will not be anything to violent or sexual on. Right?! Right!!
People are more trustworthy of their closer peers because if something were to happen in order to lose any trust, they would have a more instant ability to turn around the situation. People don't trust the media or the president or hardly anyone in a higher stance because out of all the people in the nation that these media are attempting to sway, how is it that at any moment when it is instantly needed, will their needs be met and their trust be served? Most people, whether or not they admit to it, are more concerned with their personal lives and their emotional needs rather than what exactly is going on in the nation, because everyone must deal with their own self every minute of every day.
So how are we to fully trust someone or something that is almost completely out of our reach?
-Malissa Ahlin
I think that the media has been hiding a lot of information about the war in Iraq. Therefore, I do not have much trust in them at all. As for the senate I do trust that they will make the right decisions.
Alyssa Hansen
It is hard to trust someone who we do not have a personal relationship with (such as our President and other people who hold high positions) but, whether we like it or not, that leader has been placed in that position for a reason. Yes, we may not agree with everything that person does, but we must trust that the leader knows what is best (whether it is to the benefit of us or not). I believe America has become so self-centered and focused on having our own individual needs met by our government. This however is not possible. One leader cannot please everyone by making one decision. Let's face it, not everyone will always be happy. The leader simply must make a decision believing that it is the right decision for the majority of people under his care. It is one thing to trust but another to expect. We can TRUST that our leader will make the right decisions but we cannot EXPECT to always be satisfied with the result.
These statistics seem very real to me. It is true that now more than ever the society is losing its trust. I personally do not trust "any of the above" either, not only because of the current situation of war, but because I believe that they are not trust worthy. It is known to most of the country that the president and his support do not tell us the whole truth. I believe that if I am voting and or trusting someone I want the WHOLE truth because (as it is my country too) I deserve to know what is going on in our country.
I believe that the numbers posted are very real. People are beginnin gto not have trust in our government or president not only because of the fact or war, but because they are holding out vital information from the public. As a society people have less trust in people that they do not know personally, so it makes it hard to bea able to trust someone in such a position.
These statistics seem pretty believable to me. I think the media is untrustworthy because they are trying to sell papers or gain viewers. The media says what they think will make readers or viewers happy. I think over the past few years it has been hard to trust the people mentioned above, but hopefully in time they will be able to regain our trust, by making decisions to benefit us all.
I think that people like to say that they don't trust in the media because it makes us sound like we're too influenced. In reality though, when a national crisis occurs,everyone turns to the media for information. Why would this be our first choice if we didn't trust it? I think that most people are just in denial.
Trust can be hard to find with the shift towards isolationism, somewhat due to many individuals input in life coming soley from television so early on paving the way for loss of interaction bewteen living people.
Trusting the media is so difficulkt because of the loss of credibility in fiascos like the New York Times hadlines that no one thought to check for so long.
as far as trust in the others, Its easy to distrust people who chronically ignore their opinions and are motivated by greed and self interest and worse, make no effort to hide this fact.
With elements like these in place, trust would seem silly, even a mistake. But better than simply mistrust, people should adopt a simple posture that says "lets change those things that fill us with doubt, change them so we don't have to feel that mistrust.
It is easy to see why people do not trust many entities. Take the pharmaceutical companies. Why would you trust someone who continues to sell you the idea that you have a disease and if you take their pills you can manage it. The public has been blinded. If you take their little pills you can expect them to harm you in some other way, these are known as side effects, and then you need to purchase more of their pills to repair the damage the other pills have done. The CEO wants to keep you sick so he can have his multi-million dollar bonuses every year. As far as the automative industry every woman has a story about a mechanic who has ripped them off. Insurance, take State Farm, they tried to save millions of dollars by not paying out to the Katrina victims. Lastly, our President. Someone posted that we need to trust that the leader knows what is best and makes the right decision for the majority of people. Who are they kidding. The majority has spoken. The problem is, the president has selective hearing.
People will begin to trust when it is earned. Until then, question everything.
The media I trust right now is the Denver Post and the Rocky Mtn. News. I have used a lot their information to fruther my causes I have taken up for the voiceless of our country. I usually do not go by what I hear from others and listen only to my sons. I do not believe any of the politians from Colorado. They have not responded to needs of the people. In just Pueblo alone there a grip on the poor people that even their own civil and constitutional rights are violated every day. My sons and I have banned together to fight the injustice in this town. It is every where. At least in Denver there are groups that fight for so many causes and rights and get the help people need. The newspaper coverage there do care about the disadvantaged. The Pueblo Chieftain does not regard to know the REAL NEEDS OF OUR CITIZENS and they are the only newspaper in town FOR THE TIME BEING.
I think the Stats above are believable and accurate. It is hard to trust someone who you dont personally know and its tough to trust someone with the responsibilty as big as President of the United States. I also think that the media is untrustworthy because all they care about is making money so they will do or say whatever it takes to make money. So overall i think that this is pretty accurate.
Everyone has a resaon for everything that is done. Sometimes these reasons a hidden and other times they are obvious. A politician visits a state hospital, while he (or she) may be doing it to brighten the day of the employees and patrons, there is a good chance that he (or she) has made a point of having press coverage of that particular event. So what's the real reason for the visit? When I say that "everyone" has a motive behind their actions I mean everyone. This includes all facets of media. News stations are a business, less conventional than say Intel, but a business none-the-less. They have profits to make and employes to pay, so their ultimate goal might not be simply to keep the general public informed. That might be part of the reason, but can we honestly expect it to be the complete reason? So with profits to be gained, isn't it reasonible to expect that might affect the how storys are told and which ones are shelved? Bloggers don't carry as much weight simply because they have few if any creditials. Blogs can be writting by anyone, regardless as to whether or not they have any knowledge of the topic they are writing. Because of this, information taken from a blog should be double-checked with a more reliable source. As such, it is hardly fair to say that bloggers are trusted. The best way to establish a feeling of trust between an informed and a consumer is to have the consumer feel as though they know your intentions for informing. Word of mouth tends to come from peers. Peers have little chance for hidden motives and little reason to hide facts. Trust comes from knowledge. If you are going to hide things from me (whether that be your motives or information) you should not expect me to trust everything you say.
The statistics are not suprising at all. If you look back through history why would you even want to trust the list that was mentioned. If you consider one of the largest scandals of all time, Watergate, what would the government expect. The watergate scandal was only uncovered because of the governments sloppiness and the willingness of two reporters to actually question the government. In today's society the government is much more careful about how they perform activities that may be deemed as questionable to the public. As far as trusting the media...they only report to gain viewers, listeners, and contributors to their stations. Nowadays, you literally have to flip page after page to find actual descent news. Recently I did a research paper on how trust worthy PR is and why they are always invisible to the public, yet so influential. After reading tons of information on them, i found out that newspapers and tv stations actually get alot of their facts from PR firms. Why in the world would someone want to trust facts coming from firms that are designed to hide the negative and promote the positive.
As far as who i trust, i would have to agree that the trust lies in word of mouth.
I feel like people do not trust the media because you will hear one thing on one channel and something completely different on another channel. So many channels can be swayed one way or another if enough money is at stake. I don't really trust anyone listed. As soon as I think I have heard something I believe there are five other sources contridicting it. A good example would be the Bush Administration and Michael Moore. Before I ever heard of Michael Moore I believed most things that Bush said. Then I watched Farenhiet 9/11 and it opened a whole knew side of me that questions almost everything I hear or read.
People probably don't trust the government and media for different reasons, and I would assume that in this particular case those tested assumed "the media" dealt mostly with news. It's likely that they wouldn't trust the news because it is assumed anchors or programs are paid off to say different things, and of course groups are concerned about bias and such, though in truth that may not be the main reason.
I think the main reason, whether people see it upfront or not, is the difference in class between the common consumer and the media or government. People don't think they can be represented by someone that isn't sharing the same concerns as the day to day person. Bush never has to worry about being able to pay for college for his children, or putting food on the table, and odds are the average person views media people that are on TV or in magazines or what have you every day as rich, thus causing the same sort of distrust. That combined with the fact the media exaggerates things can't help credibility at all.
I'm not suprised that bloggers were pretty high up. I think that blogs are surprisingly honest and i have a certain amount of trust in them. They are not edited, be a higher source (most of them), they are very blunt at times, and I think that they are a reflection of how an actual person, not a politician, thinks. I agree that it is more defined by the "people like me aspect". I think that people find that aspect comnforting.
Perhaps the reason that the public is so distrusting of the media and other officials is because there is no way to, in a sense, “check up” on these entities. With friends, co-workers, or relatives, we have the ability of finding our own sources of information. We can search for our own facts and determine what is true and what is false. When it comes to national or even state wide events, this is extremely difficult. The only thing we have to base things off of is what others are telling us, specifically the media. The sad part is bad news travels much more quickly than good news. So when something is inaccurately reported or misconstrued, the public generally focuses in on that aspect and bases opinion off that one inconsistency despite the fact that it may have only been an error of 1 in 1,000. Also, the people we tend to trust are often those who share our opinions, much like the response to the pole of “people who are like me.” At this point in time, much of America is against the war and the United State’s involvement, something that the president is a heavy proponent of. We are often wary of those with conflicting views, especially when we have no way of controlling the consequences.
Generally I my trust toward issues with subjects like technology, insurance, and the media, only goes so far. I have grown up with knowledge of these issues and still to this day I do not believe that I can truely trust any matter such as these subjects listed above. I was not suprised however, to hear that media was down on the trust list. The media consists of people who feel the need to express, collect, and share information. If the media has no followers, it is because humans are not trustworthy of eachother for issues that relate all the way back to instincts and survival. The media has again, and again; reported certain topics unfairly or incorrect and that all together is just the a small piece of the puzzle.
I honestly feelt that the government doesnt tell us alot about most issues. Maybe their worried about us over stressing things and panacking about situations that they have under control such as the way in iraq. As far as that topic goes I'm not really sure what to think most of the time. When it comes down to it we tend to believe sources that we are more interested in and trust more. We listen to our peers because we trust them and could turn the situation around if ever it were needed to be just because we have more control. We also believe things that we hear over and over again. Media has a way of being repetative until the point is across to its viewers. Sometimes the media isnt completely honest but for some reason we still tend to focus more on what news stations and online articles have to say.
I just completed a paper on credibility of the media and found statistics from a Gallup poll that revealed that “Americans rate the trustworthiness of journalists at about the level of politicians and as only slightly more credible that used-car salesmen.” I find that hilarious.
I agree that word-of-mouth from peers is my trusted source. I don’t believe what I hear and only half of what I see. Who I trust would depend on the media source. I trust the majority of the information from local writers in the Chieftain. I prefer to see live coverage on the news rather than a bias reporter. I am pretty sure I don’t trust bloggers, although opinions are interesting and some times even entertaining.
I think the media is unworthy of the nation’s trust because they are competing for entertainment rather than reporting the facts. It is all about ratings.
These days, I don't trust anyone unless I know them. I don't even trust my peers if I don't know them. There are too many people that have alternate motives for obtaining your trust. Most of the people that want you to trust them want something from you, and it is usually money or something of value you have. I especially don't trust big businesses or corporations. I don't trust my insurance agent, my doctor, the police, and especially the people who run our country. I only trust my family and a few close friends. The world can be a sick and manipulative place, watch out because no matter what anyone says, there is always someone out there that wants your trust for the wrong reasons, even if you don't believe it. Sure, I want to trust the president, the senate, the law, the government, the media, but when an immigrant from another country can easily steal my identity and start ruining my credit or the media slurs every piece of information I want to understand, I start to wonder. I may sound brutal, but I speak from personal experience. The older I get, the more the world opens my eyes…
Joann Babbitt
One reason we've lost trust in the government ant the media is because they can easily be swayed to a particular opinion for enough money. Also since many of the major television stations are ran by Republicans who own most of the medias we use every day , they try to sway the content to their own opinions instead of the general public. The leaders of our country and media don't see individual people, they just see large groups of the public who they try to push their ideas and products on.
Posted by Thomas Johnson
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