AP Poll: It's Hard to Believe, But This Poll We Just Ran About Public Attitudes About the Press Says That We Are Disbelieved and Despised

How did this happen? I am stun.

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air quotes the AP:

When it comes to the news media and the impact it's having on democracy and political polarization in the United States, Americans are likelier to say it's doing more harm than good.

Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults say the news media is increasing political polarization in this country, and just under half say they have little to no trust in the media's ability to report the news fairly and accurately, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.

The poll, released before World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, shows Americans have significant concerns about misinformation.

The press, which is totally a disinterested third-party observer and has no undisclosed direct financial interest at stake here, frets that people's disgust with the media may send the public to other sources of news besides the media.

That breakdown in trust may prompt many Americans to reject the mainstream news media, often in favor of social media and unreliable websites that spread misleading claims and that can become partisan echo chambers, leading to further polarization.

The press is the biggest, loudest source of disinformation and conspiracy theories in the world, and also is the biggest, nastiest, least-nuanced partisan echo chamber.

While a slim majority of Americans say they have some degree of confidence in the news media's ability to report the news fully and fairly, only 16% say they are very confident. Forty-five percent say they have little to no confidence at all.

...

Four in 10 say the press is doing more to hurt American democracy, while only about 2 in 10 say the press is doing more to protect it. An additional 4 in 10 say neither applies.

...

And more Republicans think the news is strongly influenced by the U.S. government and the political views of journalists.

Moar of those Conservative Conspiracy theories we need to censor!

Can anyone remember this story, and help me figure out how to search for it? Some commentator pointed out that the BBC and other big news organizations had formed a cartel, the point of which was to "fact-check" and "rate" competitor independent/conservative-tilting news sources. I think there was an open admission, an actual quote, the gist of which was that the cartel believed that the media was facing possible extinction and needed to take action to squash and libel its business competitors.

Update: I can't find the quote I'm looking for, but thanks to Buzzion and Bluebell, I know I'm talking about the "Trusted News Initiative," a state-funded censorship campaign, coordinating the power of the world's biggest media behemoths and the US and UK governments.

More of that government-corporate partnering that was deployed to such wonderful effect by Messrs. Musolini and Hitler.

A lawsuit filed today by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and multiple other plaintiffs, alleges the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), a self-described "industry partnership" launched in March 2020 by several of the world's largest news organizations, partnered with Big Tech firms to censor online news collectively.

The lawsuit targets the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), a self-described "industry partnership" launched in March 2020 by several of the world's largest news organizations, including the BBC, The Associated Press (AP), Reuters, and The Washington Post -- all of which are named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas-Amarillo Division, the lawsuit alleges these outlets partnered with several Big Tech firms to "collectively censor online news," including stories about COVID-19 and the 2020 U.S. presidential election that were not aligned with official narratives regarding those issues.

Plaintiffs: CHD, Kennedy, Creative Destruction Media, Trial Site News, Ty and Charlene Bollinger (founders of The Truth About Cancer and The Truth About Vaccines), independent journalist Ben Swann, Erin Elizabeth Finn (publisher of Health Nut News), Jim Hoft (founder of The Gateway Pundit), Dr. Joseph Mercola and Ben Tapper, a chiropractor.

Legacy news organizations are publishers of original news content and include the defendants named in the lawsuit.

...the lawsuit states, "the TNI's Big Tech members -- Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Microsoft -- are first and foremost Internet companies, each of which is, owns or controls one or more behemoth Internet platforms, including social media platforms and search engines."

"Core partners" of the TNI include the AP, Agence France Press, the BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, The Nation Media Group, Meta, Microsoft, Reuters, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter and The Washington Post.

The Trusted News Initiative (TNI), founded by the BBC [and the Google Initiative (GI) [similar to TNI], is allegedly trying to keep misinformation at a minimum and promote democracy and freedom. However, they now speak as one global voice, and some say their purpose for being is global information control.

posted by Ace at 01:05 PM

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