In addition to their well-publicized financial woes, newspapers have a credibility problem, as Americans’ confidence in them continues to decline.
A Gallup poll of 1,529 adults
conducted June 1-4 found that the proportion of respondents expressing “a great deal” of confidence in newspapers slipped from 25% in 2012 to 23% this year; in 2011 28% of Americans
expressed a great deal of confidence in newspapers.
Although there have been temporary oscillations, the general long-term direction of the trend is clearly down, as the number of
Americans expressing a great deal of confidence in newspapers previously declined from 51% in 1979 to 37% in 2000 and just over 30% in 2006.
Conservatives were least likely to trust
newspapers, with just 15% saying they have a great deal of confidence in them, compared to 25% of moderates and 31% of liberals. The proportion of conservatives expressing confidence is down from 21%
last year, while the proportion of moderates is down from 28% in 2011, and the proportion of liberals is down from a recent peak of 39% in 2009.
College graduates were also less
likely to trust newspapers (16%) than people with post-graduate education (25%). Younger people were more likely to trust newspapers, with 30% of people ages 18-29 expressing a great deal of
confidence, compared to 22% of people ages 30-49 and 17% of people ages 50 to 64.
On the positive side, newspapers did manage to beat big business (22%), organized labor (20%), health
care organizations 19%), and Congress (10%) in the Gallup poll for 2013. TV news was tied with newspapers at 23%, up from 21% last year -- but just half the 46% confidence rating it received in 1993
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Maybe if ANY of the recent scandals surrounding Obama had broken in U.S. papers rather than other sources, there might be less suspicion that newspapers are too political. It makes one wonder if the excess of Watergate coverage years ago was politically motivated, when so little attention has been paid recently to Benghazi, IRS, PRISM, etc.