Pew: In the last 5 years the percentage of Republicans with at least some trust in national news organizations has been cut in half

This is probably because a lot of Republicans are voracious consumers of fringe sites and far right news sites that decry the mainstream media (whatever that is). They more they hear it the more they believe it. As a result the elements that Republicans now trust for news is getting kookier and kookier!

….but the bias of the “mainstream” sites is getting harder and harder to ignore. That’s a big reason why so many are going to the Kooks, IMO. To draw a picture, this past week, the New York Times has had to be persuaded/embarrassed into finally admitting that it was a bad idea to withdraw military forces before getting citizens and allied workers out of Afghanistan, something that any halfway coherent sergeant or plebe at the service academies knows instinctively.

Journalism has come a long way since the days of Ernie Pyle, and that’s not a good thing, sad to say.

Bert’s exactly right.
All my adult life, I’ve primarily gotten my news from CNN, the NYT, NPR, and the like, simply because I like a slant that doesn’t agree with mine.

The past decade has been something to behold: ideological bias has gone from an “unavoidable reality” (“reality has a liberal bias” and all that) to something to be pursued, with younger journalists like Ezra Klein (of recent Vox fame, now NYT) leading the charge.

I.e., they openly tell Republicans they’re shilling for the other side and that it’s virtuous to do so.

Of course there’s a loss of trust!

I regularly get my news from NPR, NBC, ABC, and FOX. Of these sources, NBC and FOX appear to be the most biased. But, I’d say all the news sources (other than FOX) are left-leaning if not outright advocating for liberal positions.

I’m still reminded of when I watched the reporting on the Baltimore riots. I was in my hotel room on a work trip, and I would regularly switch between FoxNews and CNN to watch their coverage of the riots. It was like these two organizations were reporting on two different events. FoxNews was showing video of rioters looting, burning, and attacking first responders, and the anchors were refering to these people as thugs and criminals. CNN, meanwhile, was talking to black leaders and black single moms about the racism rampant in the Baltimore PD and how black young men were targeted by law enforcement. CNN showed video of the protests taking place, but not the looting, rioting, or arson.

I also remember listening to NPR the morning after Trump won the election. Several of the NPR reporters were openly upset and angry that he won. So much for unbiased news coverage.

I would say a few things. First, bias is inherent in everything. The idea that someone wants unbiased news is a fallacy. Second, the country itself is becoming more biased and where sides are moving more to the “far” end of the spectrum. This country is not made up of just Trump supporters. So the news reflects the people it is targeting. What you find now is that instead of people being practical they entrench farther onto one side, which drives an echo chamber. The other problem is that opinion news and fact based news is becoming more blurred at the news sources, as the opinion leaders (Clizzila, Hannity…) are becoming celebrities and driving revenue from the sources. The key is to get a balance. No single source has it “right”.

Is mainstream media biased? Of course it is.

1. Look how friendly they are to LGBT issues, and how aggressive they are against conservative Christians who respectfully disagree with LGBT lifestyles.

2. Watch them treat Democratic leaders like old family friends and present conservative Republicans as the enemy – if they present them at all.

3. They ask hard questions of the Pro-Life side; soft, friendly questions to the Pro-Choice side.

4. They never, or seldom, use the term Pro-Life; preferring the more pejorative term, Anti-Abortion or Anti-Abortion rights. They, however, regularly use the other side’s preferred term, Pro-Choice.

5. Condemn and marginalize those who ask serious questions about corona virus, and those who ask about its origin. We should fairly consider both sides, and all sides.

6. Only use medical doctors who agree with their narrative. There are other competent doctors who have other viewpoints worthy of consideration.

7. They are ardent supporters of Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory. They justify or ignore the BLM and Antifa riots, yet condemn the January 6, 2021 riot. All such rioting should be condemned.

8. Members of the mainstream media vote 90% Democratic. Maybe they could use some diversity.

9. In 2001 Dan Rather (CBS) was justly criticized for speaking at a Democratic Fundraiser. But my point is, I don’t remember anyone expressing surprise that he was speaking at it, rather than a Republican Fundraiser. Everyone knew he leaned heavily to the liberal, and Democratic side.

Diane Sawyer (ABC) was speaking about a Colorado male minister who had been seeing a male prostitute. She asked why Christians could not just accept homosexuality and then there would be no problem.

10. Often their bias is seen in what they don’t report (ignore, censor), as well as what they do report.

The media have a difficult job and are greatly talented. Often, they do get things right. But there is no doubt they lean heavily to the liberal, Democratic side of issues and politics. Perhaps they could use some Conservative Evangelical Sensitivity Training.

So, it’s no wonder so many doubt the major media sources.

We should balance ABC, CBS, NBC with other sources such as foxnews.com, NTD, Epoch Times, etc. Also, include some good Christian news sources like Baptist Press, WORLD magazine, Sharper Iron, etc. But yes, be cautious about extremist sources.

David R. Brumbelow

Really, the decline of mainstream media is a disaster of their own making. I remember back in the early 1990s when Rush was just getting his start, and he noted that he became wildly popular simply by saying the things that a lot of people believed, but weren’t being acknowledged by the MSM. For a while, the MSM started sort of acknowledging the views of conservatives, but in the end, they seemed to simply revert to the old pattern of quietly downplaying contrary evidence while the political landscape changed around them.

They’d always had some embarrassing things—remember NBC Dateline putting the flare under the side gas tank of a Chevy pickup to cause leaking gas to ignite after a crash simulation?—but they didn’t catch on that with the Internet, everybody could look up their failures, and worse yet—e.g. Dan Rather’s hit job on President Bush—they started to deny their wrongdoing. A great example; Mr. Rather. He still hasn’t owned up to his problems from 2004.

Then, to make the issue worse, the media started doing “fact checking” as a “feature”, and in doing so, they put their fingers on the scale in an even more obvious way, often even redefining the questions people asked to move the needle from “true” to “false”—at least if the scrutinized was a conservative. Even more hilariously, they decided to do a number of fact checks on the Babylon Bee, as if they were a serious news source.

With a record like that, is it any wonder people all over are going to other sources? There is bias, but what the MSM has been doing too often is just to deny the obvious.