Two questions at the end of the May 18th Suffolk National 2012 Presidential Election poll, #58 and #59, posed questions on the news outlets as well as “reporters” who are most trusted as sources for political news – the strong favorite was Fox News, with a fairly hefty percentage of those respondents choosing “undecided”, “don’t know”, “other” or “none”. (See Marginals here .) Question 58, on News Outlets was most stunning; the field included CNN 18%, MSNBC 7%, Fox 28%, ABC 6%, NBC 10%, CBS 6%, C-Span 3, with “Other” 10% and “Undecided” 12%. This finding supports the Gallup’s last “Trust in Institutions” Poll where Television News sources are ranked trustworthy by merely 11% of the Respondents. With the inability to tell the difference between an actual news report or an editorial on most newscasts, the general public has been left disenfranchised as the news media’s “take” on any given political event clearly offers a point of view rather than stating actual facts, and includes personal attacks on candidates and their families. It is the lack of what can be termed as “straight news” which is pushing those who are even remotely interested in what occurs in the political realm to find other trusted sources. Out of all networks, FOX, with the tagline: Fair and Balanced, does not editorialize the news, rather offers opinion programs which are designed to discuss political and social events. The other networks, somehow manage to avoid a distinction between the two, which has become more transparent over the past several years. That said one cannot rely on one source alone, if one wants to understand the overall consensus of a political figure and or incident, one must view the take of, at a minimum, 3 or 4 networks. It is this comparative that gives FOX the edge – although most view FOX as a “conservative” news outlet, it is more aptly a news outlet that will report, without the added bells and whistles on all candidates, or situations. That said, when one moves to the opinion programming, there the difference is evident - specifically with the Sean Hannity Program. Hannity, who is a blatant conservative, features panels that include those who are furthest from his political think, with lively, often explosive debate. This type of programming allows viewers the opportunity to hear the passion expressed by all sides of the political spectrum, and to make a distinction, between the various points of views as those individuals opinions. It is not, as is the case with Reporters from other news organizaitons, who, during a newscast, will prop up one candidate or incumbent over another in a manner which leaves no doubt in the viewers mind that the news source is “tainted”, whether they tend to like or agree with the article or not. The lack of clarity in reporting and those stories chosen, even down to the network blogs, are, in a word, mind-boggling. In particular, refer to this blogs article of Monday which follows the path a “news item” on Sarah Palin, took – beginning with an Arizona State Democrat Party website fundraiser, to the fringe blogs of the left (press) to what can be termed a “main newspaper” to the News Networks – all insisting a situation occurred, without a grain of “fact” to back it up – news has become innuendo. It took all of 15 minutes to find the source of the Palin “story” using simple Google Search, yet someone the details that emerged were not a) either found, or b) ignored by the Network News Blog that posted the item.
The last question on Trusted Reporters (Suffolk Question 59), is odd in that the majority of those cited as Reporters, are Editorialist, granted some do report news, however, the bulk of the body of work is, again, opinion oriented. Included: Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Fareed Zakarai, John King, Howard Kurtz, Candy Crowley, Bill O’Reilly, Shepard Smith, Sean Hannity, Mike Huckabee, Megyn Kelly, Rachael Maddow, Chris Matthews, Ellitot Spitzer, Ed Shutlz, Campbell Brown, Keith Olbermann, Jose Scarborough, David Gregory, Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, George Stephanopoulos, Christiane Amapour, Diane Sawyer, Katie Couris, Bob Schieffer, John Stewart and Glenn Beck – Seriously – is it any wonder the Public views new somewhat skeptically? Out of the 1070 Respondents, 294 either chose “other”, “none” or “don’t know”. This is most likely due to the fact that the aforementioned “sources” are either straight opinion programming, with the anchors (most likely to be a source); Brian Williams, David Gregory, Tom Brokaw, Anderson Cooper, Shepard Smith faring much worse than the #1 choice, one Bill O’Reilly, who took 9% of the vote, with Anderson Cooper taking 2nd place with 6% - the balance of the aforementioned all fell between 4 and 0%. 42% of those polled did not know, chose other or were clearly undecided as to whom to choose. (Source all references to Suffolk Polling: Suffolk University.).
The problem: one should not report on an event and or person, noting A occurred, (or in most cases insinuating), when there exists on the Internet, or on other programming, what amounts to 8 X 10 Color Glossies (Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant), with live audio or video, that clearly is – what is it, and not what the “reporter” has stated (or insinuated).
The solution: Read the news, if one is about to editorialize, run with a disclaimer: I am about to report, but will inject my own political opinion into this story. This may be the only way that the “trust” will return to those once lofty #1 sources, as the millions of viewers abandon the evening news in search of – news!
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