Pew: Public’s Confidence in Press Hits Low

By Published On: September 30, 2009

pew press accuracy.gif
Image from Pew Center

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found that the public’s confidence in media accuracy has has its lowest point in two decades. Pew reports:

Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last decade.

Similarly, only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased. And the percentages saying that news organizations are independent of powerful people and organizations (20%) or are willing to admit their mistakes (21%) now also match all-time lows.

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