Believability of network news drops sharply (GRAPH)

[StefanX]

This chart shows the percentage of people who "believe all or most of what the news network says." And it's falling pretty fast...

If you click on the link below, you can add other networks (eg, CNN, Fox) to the chart:
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2007/chartland.asp?id=479&ct=col&dir=&sort=&col1_box=1&col2_box=1&col3_box=1

[Joe Bacon]

1. Gee, where's 19th Century Fox?????

Probably in negative numbers! :evilgrin:

[StefanX]

3. Not on this graph but you can add them

If you go to the link at the bottom of the post, you can add other networks (eg, Fox) to the graph.

(Edited OP to include this.)

[MindPilot]

4. Faux is cable, not network.

You have to pay to watch that crap.

[MindPilot]

2. Does anyone under the age of 90 even watch network news?

Who else has time to have their ass in front of the TV at 6:00 pm?

[ArfDogMNO]

12. I suspect you have nailed

part of the reason these numbers aren't lower than they are - there is a fixed part of the population that turns their TV onto their chosen network every night, mostly older i would bet.

CBS, for example, is the most laughable - MS Word docs from the early 70's and they still stand by them, or they are authentic until proven fake? Anyone who saw that should be wondering what more subtle lies are put out which don't have the scrutiny that the fake guard docs had.

[live love laugh]

5. So why does Katie Couric get paid so much?

Part of the anchor's value is credibility.

[gratuitous]

6. You don't suppose

You don't suppose the major media's supine and credulous reporting since Florida 2000 and its sequelae had anything to do with this? Ah! Terror! Mushroom Clouds! Buy plastic sheets and duct tape! Weapons of Mass Destruction! Vorlons! (Oops) Threat Level Up! Bush Poll Numbers Down! Threat Level Up More! Abu Ghraib! Nothing to See Here! Private Lynch! Daring Rescue! Okay, Maybe Not! But Still a Hero! Surge! Success! Don't Film Those Coffins! Robust Economy!

Now, if there was a consistent voice on the teevee of someone making less than $50,000 a year like most Americans, they might be able to retrieve a smidgen of credibility. As it is, they're all overpaid courtiers gossiping about who's up and who's down today in the Court of King George the W.

[Zodiak]

7. Skewed graph

Even though the premise is correct, I do not like the way the graph is presented. There are 100 percentage points, and the graph should reflect th full range, not just from 22 to 40. This makes the shift look much larger than it actually is by creating more space per percentage point.

All told, this is an 8% shift...that's it. Not the 50% or so that the chart seems to make it look spatially.

The shift is evident, but not near as robust as they want you to think. That is disheartening for a couple of reasons. One: the shift isn't happening fast enough. Two: the organization that is putting this together is creating a dishonest perception exactly like the media that they criticize.

If someone submitted this chart for publication, I would reject it or tell them to redo it in the right scale.

[StefanX]

8. You're quite right that it's "skewed"

Tightening the overall range of the graph (from 0-100 to 22-40) does make the drop look more dramatic.

This is an old trick discussed for example in Edward Tufte's excellent book, "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte
http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Information-2nd/dp/0961392142/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201366650&sr=8-1

So I agree the graph could be presented more honestly. (That's how it was presented on the site I got it from. But if you add some more networks to the graph, the scale will broaden again.) But even these drops must be seriously disturbing for the bottom line of the news networks. The internet really does a better job at keeping people informed, and I'm glad more people seem to be discovering this.

[Zodiak]

9. Good links

And I also want to take the opportunity to say once again that the premise of the OP is correct....people are trusting the news less and less. Of course, I do not think that the corporations that do the news care much about this drop....they have far more money in other ventures that rely on an uninformed public.

You are right...the best place to get informed is the internet. I was an indoctrinated dullard when I first got to the "blogosphere".

[Swamp Rat]

11. The Internet = The Mother of all Knowledge

Of course, there a good books too, like "How to Lie with Statistics" by Darrell Huff. ;)

[ArfDogMNO]

13. You make a great point

"they have far more money in other ventures that rely on an uninformed public."

Which I have argued on other sites - the media as a whole doesn't care how annoyed the public gets when it comes to their pet propaganda - they will cram it wholesale down our mouths and damn the bottom line. GE, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and News Corp are all huge concerns (mostly media, though GE is almost the definition of conglomerate), and I am not sure there is any measurable impact on them from blowing their credibility.

I think the example which best illustrates the apparently immunity of the media from any consequences of size is the fake guard docs from 2004 on cbs. Here a company is caught showing blatantly fake documents (anyone who was alive in the 70's knows no typewriter in the world at that time even remotely imitated MS Word, much less did it pixel for pixel) to try to unseat a sitting president, and what happened to them? Fired 4 people, next.

[TahitiNut]

15. It's quite often more 'truthful' to display a limited range, even for percentages. Take unemployment

... as an example. Unemployment typically varies between around 4% up to about 8-10%, where the former is regarded as Excellent and the latter is regarded as Terrible. Indeed, when unemployment rises above 10% it's usually regarded as catastrophic. Unemployment NEVER falls below 2-3%, so that's equivalent to 'nothing' in most folks minds. It'd be idiotic, imho, to portray unemployment on a full 100 point scale.

Another example is the Gini Ratio. While the Gini Ratio THEORETICALLY ranges from 0.00 to 1.00, it NEVER reaches either, or even close. The vast majority of economies, even "2nd and 3rd world" economies, measure somewhere between 0.20 and 0.60. There's an enormous difference in the fundamental economic conditions between 0.25 and 0.45 and it's both fair AND truthful to display such a range.



There's really no substitute for a basic comprehension of the underlying conditions being portrayed. In the example of this thread, can ANYONE who's fundamentally sane and well-informed conceive of any possible situation where 'believability' reached 0% or 100%?? Even Tass and Pravda would measure above 0% and even the BBC would rate below 100%.

[IsItJustMe]

10. Our entire msm seems like a giant right wing soap opra to me. I honestly don't believe any of it

anymore. PERIOD.

[ArfDogMNO]

14. reply

"Our entire msm seems like a giant right wing soap opra to me."

I don't think it can be applied in terms of right or left - I look at the media as an advocate of more and bigger government and absolutely unrestricted free trade. Doesn't matter what party is in power (if you think there is much difference between the 2 once they actually are in power), the media likes more centralized government.

The political views one comes with color how they see the media greatly, and in realizing this, I decided to alter the scale.

[Greyhound]

18. Not reich-wing, corporate.

We have to keep this reality up front to avoid the mistakes we constantly repeat. Over the last century the corporations and their predecessors have successfully camouflaged themselves by associating with one party or the other.

The parties are but two faces of the same same rulers.

[lpbk2713]

16. Biggest decline ratio was since the corrupt and evil BushCo Regime took power.

No surprise there.

[ConcernedCanuk]

17. CNN and Fox come out on top, CNN drops around 10% - Fox pretty steady

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Things that make one go Hmmmmm

[malaise]

19. Any bets KO is keeping

NBC ahead.

[Uncle Joe]

20. The most dramatic drop coming after the year 2000, go figure that one. n/t