It's Official: Most People Think The Media Sucks

No wonder journalists rank below lawyers and terrorists on the popularity scale.

It isn't that they continue to screw stories up on a daily basis, but they also have an agenda, a holier-than-thou attitude and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the fact nobody gives a shit about them or what they think.

Now they're being tuned out in droves.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey.

While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.

"That's a really encouraging reflection of people who care A) about journalism and B) understand that it makes a difference to their lives," said Andrew Nachison, of iFOCOS, a Virginia-based think tank which organized a forum in Miami where the findings were presented.

Nearly half of the 1,979 people who responded to the survey said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, up from 40 percent just a year ago. Less than one third use television to get their news, while 11 percent turn to radio and 10 percent to newspapers.

Now of course those of us who have blogs need news sources for information, don't get me wrong. But the day has long since passed where we're subjected to being stuck in a one newspaper town.

We're able to find news and opinion from every corner of the globe instantly and those news outlets that continue to practice biased, agenda-driven news coverage (hello New York Times!) continue to descend into irrelevance. If certain sources are consistently biased or wrong, others will be thre to fill in the void.

Naturally, we need some arrogant, pompous twit to explain the obvious.

Howard Finberg, of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, said the public often doesn't understand that the sources they are accessing online such as Google News and Yahoo News pull stories from newspapers, television, wire services and other media sources.

"It's delivered in a non-traditional form, that doesn't necessarily mean there isn't traditional journalism underneath it," he explained.

Thanks for clearing that up, Howie.

We're too damn stupid to be able to read.

Update: Hot Air links here and here. Thanks!

Now check out this idiot from CBS.



Heat rays. The new waterboarding, perhaps.

Update II: As if we needed another example of media incompetence, behold this gem of a headline from AP: Bush Resigns Because of Plagiarism.



Update III: Thanks to Don Surber for the link!