It’s no surprise there is something of a “crisis of confidence” in the media these days.
According to a Gallup poll this fall, only 4 in 10 Americans say they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust and confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. This ties the historic lows on this measure set in 2014 and again in 2012. Among the younger audience, the confidence is even lower: only 36 percent indicate they have even a “fair amount” of trust in the media.
Sharyl Attkisson of Full Measure interviewed Howie Kurtz, media critic and host of Fox News’ “MediaBuzz,” who gave his top three picks for what the media got wrong in 2015.
No. 3: Brian Williams and his episode of “misstating” danger
“It is still incomprehensible to me,” said Kurtz, “why Brian Williams – who was in danger in a helicopter over Iraq in 2003 – felt the need to exaggerate and embellish and say things that weren’t true.”
Williams’ tale evolved over time. Over the years, his story went from being in a helicopter behind one that was attacked to being in the one that was attacked. That cost him his job in the anchor chair at NBC.
“This was a guy at the top of his profession, number one nightly newscast,” said Kurtz. “Yet there was a series of exaggerations and untruths, not just about Iraq. It is still hard to understand, since he did the reporting, why he felt the need to make the story even better.”
No. 2: Minimizing ISIS
“We have the attention span of a gnat,” noted Kurtz. “When ISIS was doing those terrible and awful beheadings of journalists and others, it was the number one story in America and internationally. But then came almost a year in which we got distracted by other things – the campaigns, certainly violence here at home – and terrorism just slipped off the media radar. A few people covered it, but it wasn’t top of their newscasts or on their front pages. Then suddenly the Paris attacks, San Bernardino, and all the journalists are asking the Obama administration, ‘Why didn’t you take this threat seriously enough?’ And we too had to kind of let it slide.”
“I would argue we wait too often in the news media to get our cues from powers that be as to what to cover instead of us figuring it out,” said Attkisson.
“And we react to disaster after the fact,” confirmed Kurtz.
No. 1: Misjudging Donald Trump
“It’s likely the biggest political media mistake of the last half-century: to completely and totally mock and minimize Donald Trump’s chances of becoming a serious presidential candidate, even after he was shooting up in the polls,” stated Kurtz.
“There was this constant refrain by the pundits – this was just a summer fling, he was going to implode every time he said something controversial, this was the beginning of the end – and yet he is such a media mass that he made the pundits look bad, and some of them just don’t like the guy, including some reporters, and that was reflected in the misjudgment about the Trump candidacy.”
Attkisson observed this misjudgment about Trump reiterates the public’s distrust in what the news media are saying versus what they see happening on the ground.
“This is what journalists can’t understand,” emphasized Kurtz. “When Trump would call out journalists, or when he would just shrug off the criticism even when he had factually misstated something, it’s because the media were willing to trust him and not us. We’ve lost a lot of trust in this business.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2015/12/27/top-3-news-media-screw-ups-of-2015/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2015/12/27/top-3-news-media-screw-ups-of-2015/
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