Grumpy Editor notes most print and broadcast editors last week made sure a new Gallup poll finding that focused on news media remained hush-hush: Americans' trust in media remains at an historical low.
Just 40 percent of those surveyed Sept. 9 to 13 said they have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of trust and confidence in the mass media (newspapers, radio, television) to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, reported Gallup.
The great deal/fair amount percentage was at 54 percent in 2003-2004 and slightly higher at 55 percent in 1998 and 1999.
Gallup added that trust in media ranked significantly lower --- 36 percent vs. 53 percent 10 years ago --- among those 18 to 49 than those 50 and older, continuing a pattern evident since 2012. However, the 2015 figure was up one percent from 35 percent last year.
One factor behind the low ratings was that "major venerable news organizations have been caught making serious mistakes in the past several years," observed Gallup.
Meanwhile, two days before the Gallup poll was released, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on CBS’ 60 Minutes, declared, “Some of the media are among the worst people I've ever met. And I mean a pretty good percentage is really a terrible group of people. They write lies, they write false stories. They know they're false. It makes no difference.”
But some trust remained out there.
A Suffolk University/USA TODAY finding, released two days after the Gallup poll, revealed 23 percent of those quizzed named Fox News as the television news or commentary source they trust most. CNN came in second with 15 percent, followed by NBC with 10 percent, CBS with 9 percent and ABC with 6 percent.
In case your favorite news outlets missed these...
While U.S. stocks gyrate as investors (every other day, it seems) worry about the health of China's economy, Chinese are on “an L.A. spending spree,” buying expensive homes in the area and swank goods in Beverly Hills, reports The Hollywood Reporter, adding, “In 2014, a full 20 percent of the city’s $8 billion in real estate sales was purchased by Chinese buyers. Showing no signs of slowing down, this injection of Chinese capital and influence can be felt at every level of L.A.’s culture of consumption”…A record 94.6 million people were not in the labor force in September, 579,000 more than in the previous month, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics…Bloomberg Businessweek names Ellen Pollock as editor. Currently deputy editor, she will be the first woman editor to lead the 86 year-old magazine…The U.S. Post Office issues a Charlie Brown forever stamp, 50 years after “A Charlie Brown Christmas” first aired on television and to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Peanuts comic strip…Dunkin' Brands plans to shutter 100 Dunkin' Donuts stores within the year...Scientists are fascinated about a “blob,” a large low temperature area in the North Atlantic near Greenland that is record cold in some locations…Washington’s National Press Club is hoping to get as much as $15 million, via a Nov. 19 New York City auction, for a Norman Rockwell painting of a small-town American newsroom titled, "Norman Rockwell Visits a Country Editor."
Grumpy Editor, who gets some strange non-media news releases, is still trying to figure this one from a Cherry Hill, N.J., public relations firm. The subject line: Re: Feat/Int: Embrace the Machine! Sales Management Radical Cuts Out Commissions in New Field Guide.
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