Lack of trust in the media is at a historic low, pundit and columnist Kayleigh McEnany pointed out on today's Reliable Sources.
Isn't that because conservatives have been telling people for 30 years not to trust media, challenged reliably left-of-center Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter.
No, McEnany responded, it's because "discrepancies" in coverage have given them reason for skepticism, and she cited Media Research Center analysis to bolster her case --
STELTER: This issue of the echo chamber as was talked about earlier in this hour, whether it's Breitbart or Fox or other things like that. You're a conservative columnist, I mentioned in the intro, but you're writing for The Hill, you're not writing for Breitbart, for example, that seems to only preach to the choir. Do you think more needs to be done to communicate to Trump voters about why it is valuable to seek out a wide range of sources?
MCENANY: I think it's really important, of course, you know, but I don't think Breitbart and Drudge, for instance, are in this exclusive world, because you do have, you know, the liberal publications, the Daily Kos's of the world that have their bias. And then somewhere in the middle you have sources like, you know, CNN who really endeavor to get to the truth, you know, ABC, NBC, they endeavor to be in the center. But what I think is important is for the media as a whole to step back and ask, why doesn't the public trust us? Because public trust in media is at a historic low, Gallup says it's the lowest in recorded history ...
STELTER: Isn't it because conservatives having been telling people not to trust the media for 30 years?
MCENANY: That's in part but I do think that there are some discrepancies. When you look at, for instance, ABC, NBC, CBS, the major broadcast networks, there was a report that came out in June, Media Research Center which is a right-leaning institution but nevertheless they tracked the amount of coverage given to the Clinton Foundation, it was three minutes, and 23 minutes on the other hand was given to Trump's scandal when he was impersonating his own press person back in the '90s, so a 20-minute discrepancy in coverage. So I think conservatives have a reason when they say we think the major broadcast networks are not representing us. (More precisely, it was just over four minutes of coverage about allegations of Clinton Foundation charity fraud and 38 minutes on Trump's self-flackery, according to NewsBusters' Geoffrey Dickens).
STELTER: And no doubt there are self-inflicted wounds the press have caused over the years.
That there have been -- such as the purportedly unbiased Stelter smearing NewsBusters as an example of "fake news." This despite the fact that the site accurately describes itself -- high above the home page -- as devoted to "Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias."
Stelter claimed this about NewsBusters without doing any research or knew about the purpose of the site but misrepresented it regardless. Either way, shabby journalism. Perhaps it's the "News" in the name that throws him off, obviously too nuanced.
If conservatives telling people not to trust media is all it takes for people not to trust media, as Stelter claims, shouldn't conservatives telling people to elect Republicans for president have resulted in an unbroken succession of Republican presidents?
