Democracy Dies In Distrust

From New polls on the media should alarm the press into introspection and correction by Steve Krakauer.  

What is it exactly about January 6 that accounts for the gigantic gulf between the press' impression of it and the public's? The latest Monmouth poll tracking the American people's attitudes toward the January 6 committee and its revelations came out on Wednesday, and the results are more of the same. Just 8% of Americans say their opinions about that day have been changed by the committee's hearings - the exact same as in August and up from 6% in June. 44% say they have no faith the committee could conduct a fair hearing - that's the highest number yet, up 8% since August. But most importantly, just 36% of Americans say Donald Trump is "directly responsible" for what happened that day, a percentage that has been progressively declining since the hearings started.

The Acela Media is more out of touch than ever (self-promo alert - a point I explore in-depth in my forthcoming book, Uncovered, out in February and available for pre-order now, ok that's it). A few other polls made that glaringly clear. Gallup is perhaps the best poll to track trust in the media over time, going back to the 1970s. While Democrats' trust in the press has never dipped much below 60%, the Republican and independent line has been steadily ticking downward. Here's the most recent chart:

 

That independent figure is just shockingly low. In the span of four years, independent trust in the media has gone from 42% to 27%, and has dropped a full 9 points in just the last two years.

Then there's the New York Times / Siena poll. It's hard to get partisans to agree on just about anything these days, but this poll shows one area where there is some consensus - disdain for the press. When asked what is a threat to democracy, 57% said Republicans were a major or minor threat, while 63% said Democrats. But far exceeding those numbers were those who said "the mainstream media" - that figure was 84%! 

Of course, the state of democracy is something the media seems to be much more concerned about than the average American. In the same poll just 7% viewed it as the most important issue facing the country today. Voters are not nearly as concerned about the whole "election denier" issue as the press would like them to be. The New York Times poll found that 71% of Republicans are open to voting for someone who rejected the 2020 election results - but so are 37% of independents and even 12% of Democrats.

Then there's a recent Harvard-Harris poll, which looked at what Americans see as their top issues, versus what the parties are most concerned with. January 6 was a top three issue to just 7% of respondents (inflation was #1 with 37%, and jobs/economy was #2 with 29%). What did respondents think Democrats were most concerned with? January 6 was #1, with 27%. I wish they asked about the media specifically.

The corporate press has been hammering the issues of "democracy," January 6 and election denialism nonstop in the run-up to this midterm election next month. And the American people are largely disinterested in the topics - disdainful of the press which has found yet another way to divide us while focusing on issues that are cerebral rather than practical.

The Washington Post self-melodramatically changed their tag line to Democracy Dies in Darkness when Donald Trump was elected President.  Far more accurate would have been Democracy Dies In Distrust.  And the mainstream media killed itself by becoming untrustworthy.