Here are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.
THE PUBLIC VIEWS THE MEDIA – I find it interesting that media insiders are coming clean on media bias, supporting long-held public opinion on the subject.
“We are a cancer and there is no cure,” is the view of a top producer at MSNBC, who recently left the network. This follows the resignation of the New York Times opinion staff editor, who wrote “I don’t want to live in a world where the views of half the country can’t be heard in the paper of record.”
On Tuesday, the Knight Foundation released its “American Views 2020: Trust, Media and Democracy,” the results of a joint Gallup and Knight survey of 20,000 U. S. adults conducted between November 8, 2019 and February 16, 2020. There was no explanation for the six-month delay in releasing the results.
In addition, it is unfortunate that the data was collected prior to the declaration of the pandemic and the subject of racial injustice swept the nation.
Regardless of the timing, the survey found a “deepening pessimism and further partisan entrenchment about how the news media delivers on its democratic mandate for factual, trustworthy information.
“Many Americans feel the media’s critical role of informing and holding those I power accountable is compromised by increasing bias. As such, Americans have not only lost confidence in the ideal of an objective media, they believe news organizations actively support the partisan divide.”
A majority of Americans currently see a “great deal” (49 percent) or a “fair amount” (37 percent) of political bias in news coverage. Nearly three quarters of Americans say they see too much bias in reporting of news that is supposed to be objective as a “major problem” (73 percent), up from 65 percent in 2017.
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans (79 percent) say they distrust news organizations that are trying to persuade people to adopt a certain viewpoint.
Finally, 48 percent of Americans say the media bears “a great deal” of blame for the division in this country, an issue that is continuously blamed on President Trump.
I have frequently accused the media, with its systematic publishing of negative news about the president, having an effect on the president’s “favorable/unfavorable” ratings and right track trend.
COULD IT BE that President Trump’s strong record of support for the black community – his pre-pandemic record low black unemployment and higher wages, his prison reform bill, his opportunity zone funding and his permanent funding of black colleges and universities – a record he humorously claims the best since Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, caused the Biden campaign to schedule an ad directed to black voters in 15 states?
MEANWHILE, Joe Biden is again showing how out of touch he is with the black community. He has called for “redirecting” police funds while a new Gallup poll revealed that eight out of ten blacks oppose having police spend less time in their areas. While 67 percent are okay with the current presence of police, 19 percent of blacks want more police in their areas.
Incidentally, 83 percent of Hispanics want the same or more policing.
THEN THERE’S President Trump, often falsely accused of being a racist and white supremacist, who swore-in the first black Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. Charles Q. Brown in the Oval Office on Tuesday, telling him “It is a distinct honor for me to have this opportunity.”
HAVE YOU HEARD Joe Biden explain how he would handle China? No matter, Matt Margolis of PJ Media captured this on Wednesday:
“The way Trump … the way China will respond is when we gather the rest of the world that in fact (unintelligible) in in fr … in in in open trade and making sure we’re in a position that the world uh that that we deal with WHO the right way that in fact that’s when things begin to change, that when China’s behavior is going to change.”
Is it any wonder why his supporters are urging him to avoid debating President Trump?
LOOKING BACK to July 23, 2020, you may recall my reporting of the Cato Institute survey showing that 62 percent of Americans say the political climate these days prevents them from saying what they believe because others might find it offensive; thus, the possibility of inaccurate presidential preference polling.
The survey found that nearly two thirds of Latino Americans (65 percent), Asian Americans (65 percent), white Americans (64 percent), as well as nearly half (49 percent) of blacks, feel uneasy sharing their views, according to more information revealed in a piece by CATO research fellow Emily Elkins in The Federalist.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
