Headline at Free Market News:Americans Slam News Media

On Sunday, January 13, 2008, FreeMarketNews.com posted an article about a poll conducted by Sacred Heart University. See article: http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=53677

The Poll revealed that: "significantly declining percentages of Americans saying they believe all or most of media news reporting. " Most of the people polled agreed that there is a liberal slant to the major news organizations.,

James Castonguay, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of SHU's Department of Media Studies & Digital Culture, said about the poll results, "The fact that an astonishing percentage of Americans see biases and partisanship in their mainstream news sources suggests an active and critical consumer of information in the U.S." He added that the availability Internet news sources contributes to the skepticism.

In fact, the poll demonstrated that a growing number of Americans see the news media as an attempt to shape public opinion. And that the media has, in effect, abandoned their role as objective reporters.

Jerry C. Lindsley, director of the Sacred Heart University Polling Institute said about the poll that "American know bias and imbalance when they see it." And "they don't like it," he added.

His best comment, in my opinion, was: "Americans know that it's just not that hard to present both sides and keep personal bias at home."

The most trusted national TV news organizations, for accurate reporting, - according to the poll - in declining order included: Fox News (27.0%), CNN (14.6%), and NBC News (10.90%). These were followed by ABC News (7.0%), local news (6.9%), CBS News (6.8%) MSNBC (4.0%), PBS News (3.0%), CNBC (0.6%) and CBN (0.5%)

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SOURCE Sacred Heart University Polling Institute