The New York Times still hasn't apologized, or even clarified, for reporting that Poland invaded Germany to start World War II. Though they did, to their credit, report that German panzers were rolling east, they left the Nazi's Gleiwitz "insurrectionists" story unadorned right there on the front page. I'll see if I can dig it up*
Our headline is from a piece written last April, the hook is yesterday's release of the latest Gallup polling numbers:
Americans' Trust in Media Dips to Second Lowest on Record
- 36% in U.S. have a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in mass media
- 68% of Democrats, 31% of independents and 11% of Republicans trust media
- Democrats' and independents' trust is down five points since 2020, GOP's flat
Americans' trust in the media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly has edged down four percentage points since last year to 36%, making this year's reading the second lowest in Gallup's trend.
In all, 7% of U.S. adults say they have "a great deal" and 29% "a fair amount" of trust and confidence in newspapers, television and radio news reporting -- which, combined, is four points above the 32% record low in 2016, amid the divisive presidential election campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. In addition, 29% of the public currently registers "not very much" trust and 34% have "none at all."
Line graph. Americans' trust in the mass media when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly, since 1997. In 2021, 36% have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the mass media, and 63% have not very much or none at all. This is the lowest rating since 2016, when trust was 32%, the lowest on record.
These findings, from a Sept. 1-17 poll, are the latest in Gallup's tracking of the public's confidence in key U.S. institutions, which began in 1972. Between 1972 and 1976, 68% to 72% of Americans expressed trust in the mass media; yet, by 1997, when the question was next asked, trust had dropped to 53%. Trust in the media, which has averaged 45% since 1997, has not reached the majority level since 2003.
After hitting its lowest point in 2016, trust in the media rebounded, gaining 13 points in two years -- mostly because of a surge among Democrats amid President Donald Trump's antagonistic relationship with the press and increased scrutiny of his administration by the media. Since 2018, however, it has fallen a total of nine points, as trust has slid among all party groups....
....MUCH MORE
And from Martin Gurri at Discourse Magazine, April 13:
“Post-Journalism” and the Death of News
Elites have lost control of the information agenda and, despite the “Trump bump,” they’re not getting it back
Information matters because it sets the stage and arranges the props for the drama of social and political life. It places boundaries on human action. If you think the ship is going to tip over the edge of the world, you are unlikely to sign up for that cruise.
But why should “news” matter? The answer will in part depend on the historical context. In 1920, for many people, news and information were virtually synonymous. A century later, we find that the two categories have undergone a scandalous divorce. Yet from the first, and at all times, there has been a mystique surrounding the news.
Freedom of the press holds a special place in the liberal canon: James Madison expressed the general sense of the matter when he called it “one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty.” Editors and journalists who labored in this lofty place—think James Reston or Edward R. Murrow—are often portrayed in the heroic style. The stuff they churned out—the daily output of journalism—is never depicted as an industrial product that must be promoted and sold for consumption in the marketplace. Among democratic elites, the smell of newsprint evokes the odor of sanctity.
By the middle of the last century, the mystique had congealed into an implicit ideology. Journalism and the news were said to sustain democracy in two distinct but complementary ways.
By distributing objective reports to the public, they broke through the fog of government secrecy and political propaganda to hold elected officials accountable. Journalists spoke truth to power and exposed corruption at the top. The Watergate scandal and downfall of Richard Nixon were taken to be mathematical proof of this proposition—in the Hollywood version of “All the President’s Men,” investigative reporters assumed the guise of film noir detectives searching for truth in a dangerous and deceitful world. Absent such fearless light-bearers, democracy, we were told, would die in darkness.
Journalists, once considered shiftless scribblers, were also reimagined as political educators to the masses. They brought Washington to Wichita Falls and the world to Main Street. The theory of the “omnicompetent sovereign citizen” required that all who participate in democracy possess a masterful knowledge of issues and affairs. The news met that demand: to devour it was not a consumer choice but a patriotic duty. Kids in public schools were handed copies of Junior Scholastic and urged to keep up with “current events.” It went without saying that they would grow up to be newspaper subscribers. After all, the road to political wisdom led directly through the news, and the daily paper delivered all the news that’s fit to print.
But between the ideology of news and the reality of the news business, the distance was breathtaking. Far from speaking truth to power, the news was the means by which elites communicated their interests and intentions to a vast but silent audience. Rather than saviors of democracy, investigative reporters were bit players in the elaborate games of the political class. Watergate, properly understood, was a minor adjustment within this group—an intramural scrum. Nearly 50 years later, nothing much has changed.
Newspapers had little incentive to educate anyone. They needed to attract eyeballs that they could then sell to advertisers, and to this end they bundled together stories about wars and movie stars, earthquakes and baseball games, as well as comic strips, advice to the lovelorn, astrological predictions and crossword puzzles. Purchasers of this bizarre agglomeration of content were not to be frightened with the ugly truth but gently herded into a bland consumerist mass.....
Border Clashes IncreaseWireless to The New York Times
Berlin, Friday, Sept. 1--An increasing number of border incidents involving shooting and mutual Polish-German casualties are reported by the German press and radio. The most serious is reported from Gleiwitz, a German city on the line where the southwestern portion of Poland meets the Reich.
At 8 P.M., according to the semi-official news agency, a group of Polish insurrectionists forced an entrance into the Gleiwitz radio station, overpowering the watchmen and beating and generally mishandling the attendants. The Gleiwitz station was relaying a Breslau station's program, which was broken off by the Poles.
They proceeded to broadcast a prepared proclamation, partly in Polish and partly in German, announcing themselves as "the Polish Volunteer Corps of Upper Silesia speaking from the Polish station in Gleiwitz." The city, they alleged, was in Polish hands.
Gleiwitz's surprised radio listeners notified the police, who halted the broadcast and exchanged fire with the insurrectionists, killing one and capturing the rest. The police are said to have discovered that the attackers were assisted by regular Polish troops. The Gleiwitz incident is alleged here to have been the signal "for a general attack by Polish franctireurs on German territory."
Two other points--Pitsachen, near Kreuzburg, and Hochlinden, northeast of Ratibor, both in the same vicinity as Gleiwitz, were the scenes of violations of the German boundary, it is claimed, with fighting at both places still under way.
To this day people point to that NYT story to say Poland started it.
