Media Trust Tanks

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TRANSCRIPT

Church Militant (a 501(c)4 corporation) is responsible for the content of this commentary.

Faith in traditional news media is at an all-time low:

• Fifty-six percent of Americans believe journalists and reporters are dishonest
• Only 46% have trust in traditional media — a sizable fall from previous years
• Trump supporters overwhelmingly scorn the media, with only 21% saying journalists are trustworthy

All this is according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, which tracks people's faith in cultural institutions.

For four years, mainstream media giants went after Trump on groundless claims of Russian collusion, children in cages at the Southern border and other high-drama narratives.

Trump: "When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people."

On the political Right, many conservatives have jettisoned Fox News — beginning Election Night, when the network prematurely called Arizona for Biden.

The liberal media from the start pursued negative stories about President Trump.

Anderson Cooper: "It would almost seem as though the president were focused on something far bigger and far more important — himself perhaps."

But media have a honeymoon attitude with Joe Biden.

On the campaign trail last year, liberals in the media fawned over Kamala Harris' footwear.

A White House correspondent in December compared Biden's cabinet picks to superheroes:

Yamiche Alcindor, White House correspondent at PBS: "I was talking to a Democrat who just said this also felt like the Avengers. It felt like we're being rescued from the craziness, and now here are the superheroes to come and save us all."

The comic-book analogies continued on Inauguration Day.

John Heilemann, national affairs analyst at NBC and MSNBC: "The sight of the Clintons and the Bushes and the Obamas — you know, the Avengers, you know sort of the Marvel superheroes, back up there together all in one place, with their friend Joe Biden."

As media bias becomes more evident, it's unclear if mainstream journalists will ever regain the public's trust.

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