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Monday, July 16th, 2012

Americans’ Confidence in Television News Drops to New Low

Author:     LYMARI MORALES
Source:     The Gallup Organization
Publication Date:     10-Jul-12
 Link: Americans’ Confidence in Television News Drops to New Low
Stephan:   One of the fundamental truths of history is that when a people distrust all of their social institutions, because they have been disappointed over and over by the performance of those institutions, to the detriment of their own personal wellbeing, social decay is well advanced. Poll after poll is telling us that is where America is today. Here is the latest poll on yet another crumbling foundation pillar of American culture: television news media. Click through to see the very revealing charts that accompany this report.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ confidence in television news is at a new low by one percentage point, with 21% of adults expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in it. This marks a decline from 27% last year and from 46% when Gallup started tracking confidence in television news in 1993.

Trend: Americans’ Confidence in Television News

The findings are from Gallup’s annual update on confidence in U.S. institutions, conducted June 7-10 this year. As such, the findings preceded the erroneous initial reports by cable-news networks CNN and Fox News regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 28 decision about the constitutionality of the U.S. healthcare law.

Among 16 U.S. institutions tested, television news ranks 11th, following newspapers in 10th place. The 25% of adults who express a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers is down slightly from 28% last year. Confidence in newspapers is now half of what it was at its peak of 51% in 1979.

Trend: Americans’ Confidence in Newspapers

This year’s updates mark a setback from last year for both television news and newspapers, when Americans appeared to be regaining some confidence in these institutions, though they are more in line with 2007-2010 readings.

Liberals’ and […]

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