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Paul Merrell

Americans' Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low - 0 views

www.gallup.com/...-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx

polls MSM public-confidence

shared by Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32% saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage points from last year.
  • Gallup began asking this question in 1972, and on a yearly basis since 1997. Over the history of the entire trend, Americans' trust and confidence hit its highest point in 1976, at 72%, in the wake of widely lauded examples of investigative journalism regarding Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. After staying in the low to mid-50s through the late 1990s and into the early years of the new century, Americans' trust in the media has fallen slowly and steadily. It has consistently been below a majority level since 2007.
  • Democrats' and independents' trust in the media has declined only marginally, with 51% of Democrats (compared with 55% last year) and 30% of independents (versus 33% last year) expressing trust. Over the past 20 years, Democrats have generally expressed more trust than Republicans in the media, although in 2000, the two parties were most closely aligned, with 53% of Democrats and 47% of Republicans professing trust.
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  • While it is clear Americans' trust in the media has been eroding over time, the election campaign may be the reason that it has fallen so sharply this year. With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more. It is also possible that Republicans think less of the media as a result of Trump's sharp criticisms of the press. Republicans who say they have trust in the media has plummeted to 14% from 32% a year ago. This is easily the lowest confidence among Republicans in 20 years.
  • Older Americans are more likely than younger Americans to say they trust the media, but trust has declined among both age groups this year. Currently, 26% of those aged 18 to 49 (down from 36% last year) and 38% of those aged 50 and older (down from 45%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media.
  • In 2001, younger Americans (55%) were more likely than older Americans (50%) to express trust and confidence in mass media. This gap emerged again in 2005 when 53% of 18- to 49-year-olds had trust and 45% of those 50 and older expressed the same sentiment. Yet in the past decade, older Americans have mostly had more confidence than younger Americans, and this year, the gap between these age groups is 12 points. And 2016 marks the first time that confidence among older Americans has dropped below 40% in polling since 2001.
  • The divisive presidential election this year may be corroding Americans' trust and confidence in the media, particularly among Republicans who may believe the "mainstream media" are too hyperfocused on every controversial statement or policy proposal from Trump while devoting far less attention to controversies surrounding the Clinton campaign. However, the slide in media trust has been happening for the past decade. Before 2004, it was common for a majority of Americans to profess at least some trust in the mass media, but since then, less than half of Americans feel that way. Now, only about a third of the U.S. has any trust in the Fourth Estate, a stunning development for an institution designed to inform the public. With the explosion of the mass media in recent years, especially the prevalence of blogs, vlogs and social media, perhaps Americans decry lower standards for journalism. When opinion-driven writing becomes something like the norm, Americans may be wary of placing trust on the work of media institutions that have less rigorous reporting criteria than in the past. On the other hand, as blogs and social media "mature," they may improve in the American public's eyes. This could, in turn, elevate Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media as a whole.
  • Paul Merrell on 19 Sep 16
     
    Personally, I suspect the fact that mainstream media's journalism standards have dropped as MSM ownership has been consolidated into 6 giant corporations might have far more to do with the decline. So declined too has been the relevance of editorial focus. In other words, MSM has only itself to blame for the public's loss of confidence. Fortunately, we've seen the rise of independent investigative journalism via the internet. Alternative media now offers far richer sources of information than MSM, once you learn to filter unreliable sources.
Paul Merrell

60 percent of Americans don't trust their mass media - poll - RT USA - 0 views

www.rt.com/...142-americans-lack-trust-media

journalism MSM trust polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • A new Gallup poll has found that six in 10 Americans say that their trust in mass media ranges from “not very much” to “none at all.” Those surveyed were asked about the media reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly. Just 33 percent said they had a “fair amount” of trust in mass media such as newspapers, TV and radio, and only 7 percent had a “great deal” of trust and confidence that the mass media reports the news, according to a Gallup poll released this week.Ten years ago, Gallup found an even split of 50/50 among Americans regarding their trust and lack of trust of the media. According to their poll results, the last time the majority of Americans trusted their media was 1976.“Americans' trust level in the media has drifted downward over the past decade…Some of the loss in trust may have been self-inflicted,” wrote Rebecca Riffkin, a Gallup analyst, in a statement.
  • The new poll was conducted as a telephone survey over five days, from September 9 to 13, with over 1,000 adults from 50 US states and the District of Columbia.Pollsters found that trust in the media was lowest among Americans aged 18 to 49 than among those 50 and older, a pattern first noticed in 2012. Prior to 2012, there was less distinction between age groups except in 2005 and 2008.When poll results are examined along political lines, trust among Democrats has usually been higher over the past decade than among Republicans and independents. That remains the case in the new survey, with 55 percent of Democrats trusting mass media, while the Republicans polled registered 32 percent, an increase of 5 percent from 2014. The trust of independents, however, decreased from 38 percent to 33 percent.Pollsters know that trust opinions typically dip during election years – including 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2014 – but the dip in a non-election year is unusual. Gallup’s Riffkin said confidence in media has slowly eroded from a high of 55 percent in 1998 and 1999. Since 2007, the majority of Americans had little to no trust in the mass media.
Paul Merrell

Syria may turn out to be Obama's defining legacy | Asia Times - 0 views

www.atimes.com/ay-turn-obamas-defining-legacy

Auction 2016 war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Syria Russia Aleppo

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • By M.K. Bhadrakumar October 5, 2016 9:54 AM (UTC+8) Share 0 Tweet Print Email Comment 0 Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report. On Monday, the Barack Obama administration fulfilled its week-old threat to suspend bilateral talks with Russia over the Syrian crisis. Does this signal that the dogs of war are about to be unleashed? The thought may seem preposterous but tensions are palpable. US spy planes are spotted ever more frequently in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea over Russian bases, especially Tartus and Hmeimim in Syria.
  • Russia has deployed SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems in Syria, the first-ever such deployments outside Russia. Western analysts see it as a pre-emptive step to counter any American cruise missile attack. Russia is not taking any chances.
  • Moscow factors in that the US may use some rebel groups to ensure that Russian “body bags” are sent to Moscow, as threatened explicitly by US state department spokesman John Kirby last week. Moscow suspects American involvement in the missile attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus — “Brits and Ukrainians clumsily helped the Americans”, a Russian statement in New York said on Tuesday. Indeed, passions are running high. There could be several dozen western intelligence operatives trapped with the rebel groups in east Aleppo. Clearly, the turning point was reached when the US and western allies undertook a fierce air attack on the Syrian army base at Deir Ezzor lasting an hour and killing 62 government troops. The US explanation of that being an accident lost credibility, since within an hour of the airstrike, extremist groups of al-Qaida followed up with ground attack as if acting in tandem.
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  • Trust has consequently broken down. The Russians are convinced that the US was never really interested in separating the moderate groups from extremists despite repeated promises, because Washington sees a use for al-Qaida affiliates, which happen to be the only capable fighting force to push the ‘regime change agenda in Syria. Put differently, Russians are inclined to agree with what Tehran has been saying all along. Moscow, therefore, switched tack and put its resources behind the Syrian operations to capture the strategic city of Aleppo and the military campaign is within sight of victory.
  • That is, unless there is US intervention in the coming days to tilt the military balance in favor of extremist groups trapped in the eastern districts of Aleppo with supply lines for reinforcements cut.
  • With no prospect of getting reinforcements, facing relentless air and ground attacks from the north and south, the rebels are staring at a hopeless battle of attrition. The point is, with the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian war becomes a residual military operation to purge the al-Qaida affiliate Jubhat al-Nusra from Idlib province as well, which means regime forces would secure control over the entire populous regions of Syria, all main cities and the entire Mediterranean coast. In a nutshell, the Syrian war ends with President Bashar al-Assad ensconced in power. The specter of “total victory” for Assad haunts Washington. It explains the string of vituperative statements against Moscow, betraying a high level of frustration. Theoretically, Obama can order missile attacks on the victorious Syrian government forces, but that will be like pouring oil on fire. On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry warned the Pentagon that any US military intervention to remove Assad would result in “terrible tectonic shifts” across the region.
  • In considering the war option, Obama has three things to take into account. First, Washington’s equations with Ankara and Riyadh are hugely uncertain at the moment and both regional allies are key partners in Syria.
  • Second, Turkish President Recep Erdogan is unlikely to gamble on another confrontation with Russia when his country’s legitimate interests in Syria can be secured by working in tandem with President Vladimir Putin at the negotiating table.
  • Third, and most important, Obama is unlikely to lead his country into a war without any clear-cut objective to realize when the curtain is coming down on his presidency. In this current state of play, Assad stands between the West and the deluge.
  • But what rankles is that Russian victory in Syria would mark the end of western hegemony over the Middle East, and historians are bound to single it out as the defining foreign-policy legacy of Obama’s presidency. Certainly, Moscow cannot but be sensing this. Russia may offer at some point a face-saving exit strategy — but only after the capture of Aleppo. After all, there is really no hurry between now and January to salvage Russia-US ties.
  • The debris of Russia’s ties with the US lies all around and no one knows where to begin a clean-up. Relations got worse when Obama called the Kremlin leadership “barbarous” in regard to Aleppo. Then, on Monday, Moscow explained its decision to suspend cooperation in getting rid of excess plutonium (that could be used to make nuclear weapons) as being due to “the emergence of a threat to strategic stability and as a result of unfriendly actions” by the US. This was a decision that Moscow could have deferred until Obama left office. After all, it meant suspending the sole Russian-American nuclear security initiative carrying Obama’s imprimatur. However, Moscow couldn’t resist depicting a Nobel Prize winner who promised to ensure “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” as someone who actually enhanced the role of nuclear weapons in the security strategy of the US.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 16
     
    If you haven't been following the Syrian War in the last couple of weeks, you'd have missed that the U.S. government has gone bats**t crazy lately, since the ceasefire agreement Kerry negotiated with Lavrov fell apart because the U.S. couldn't deliver its fundamental promise to separate the "moderate" Syrian opposition from Al-Nusrah and ISIL The U.S. problem was two-fold: [i] the Pentagon mutinied and ended all talk of intelligence sharing with Russia by bombing a Syrian Army unit, killing over 60 and wounding over 100, followed within minutes by a coordinated Al-Nusra ground attack; and [ii] all the "moderate Syrian opposition groups refused the U.S. instruction to separate from the head-choppers, saying that ISIL and Al-Nusrah were their brothers-in-arms. (In fact, there are no "moderate" Syrian rebels; just agents of ISIL and Al-Nusrah who fly a different flag when it's time to pick up their supplies and ammunition from the U.S.) What's the Empire of Chaos to do when the mercenaries refuse to obey orders? So with all major elements of al-Nurah surrounded in an East Aleppo noose with the knot rapidly tightening (Aleppo will be taken before Hillary takes her throne), it's up to Obama to decide whether to unleash the Pentagon to save the CIA's al-Nusrah from destruction. He can't kick that can down the road to Hillary (or Donald). MSM is flooding its viewership with anti-Putin propaganda of the most vituperative kind as well as horror stories about all those poor freedom fighters and their kids being ruthlessly killed by Russia in East Aleppo. James Clapper dutifully trotted out an announcement of sorts blaming the Russian government for attempting to hack the U.S. election process, so Hillary could red-bait Donald's "I'd get along with Putin" position in the last debate. The choice must be painful for Obama. Does he want his legacy to be the President who lost the Middle East or the President who waged a war of aggression to protect al-Qaeda from destructio
Paul Merrell

Trust in Mass Media Returns to All-Time Low - 0 views

www.gallup.com/...ss-media-returns-time-low.aspx

MSM-trust polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • After registering slightly higher trust last year, Americans' confidence in the media's ability to report "the news fully, accurately, and fairly" has returned to its previous all-time low of 40%. Americans' trust in mass media has generally been edging downward from higher levels in the late 1990s and the early 2000s.
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Sep 14
     
    NEWS FLASH: More Americans Showing Signs of Intelligence. "In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media --- such as newspapers, TV, and radio, --- when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly --- a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?"
Paul Merrell

BERLIN: Europe, U.S. at odds over size of Russia's intrusion in Ukraine | Europe | McCl... - 0 views

www.mcclatchydc.com/...e-us-at-odds-over-size-of.html

war & peace Ukraine Russia U.S.-foreign-policy U.S.-propaganda Nuland

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • German officials, including some in Merkel’s office, have recently referred to U.S. statements of Russian involvement in the Ukraine fighting as “dangerous propaganda,” and the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel went so far as to ask: “Do the Americans want to sabotage the European mediation attempts in Ukraine led by Chancellor Merkel?”That was a reference to Merkel’s and French President Francois Hollande’s meetings last month in Minsk, Belarus, with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin to hash out a cease-fire. While the separatists completed their takeover of the Ukrainian city of Debaltseve after the cease-fire went into effect, it’s generally considered to be holding.All sides agree that Russia is supporting the separatists, something a NATO official stressed in responding to German frustrations, saying that there’s “broad agreement on the overall situation.”But Germans and other Europeans are concerned that U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove – the NATO supreme allied commander, Europe – and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for Europe, have been exaggerating the extent of Russian involvement in the conflict.Of particular concern are Breedlove’s figures on the numbers of troops and tanks Russia reportedly has transferred to Ukraine. The numbers Breedlove offers are routinely higher than those of other intelligence agencies, and Europeans fear he’s playing to an American audience, which they think doesn’t advance peace efforts.
  • Der Spiegel reported that the first example came early in the conflict, when Breedlove announced that Russia had massed 40,000 troops at the Ukrainian border, and he called the situation “incredibly alarming.” Other NATO nations detected far fewer troops – some said fewer than 20,000 – and ruled out an invasion, saying the “composition and equipment” of the forces were “not appropriate for an invasion or attack,” according to Der Spiegel.Numerous German news reports also have noted a vast difference between the number of Russian troops that European NATO members have estimated are in Ukraine’s conflicted Donbas region and what American NATO commanders have announced. It’s 600, according to the Europeans, versus the 12,000 to 20,000 estimated by U.S. commanders.Last month, Ukrainian military officials said the Russians had moved 50 tanks and dozens of rocket launchers across the border near Luhansk, and a U.S. general said Russian troops had directly interfered in the battles. But German intelligence could verify only that a few armored vehicles had been moved.According to German media reports, a top-level German government official worried that “partly incorrect claims or exaggerated claims could gamble away trust for the entire West.”
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Mar 15
     
    McClatchy MSM, no less, reporting accusations that neocon State Dept. official Victoria Nuland USAF General Philip Breedlove --- NATO Supreme Commander --- are issuing "dangerous propaganda" about Russian involvement in the Ukraine War.   
Paul Merrell

The Politics of Betrayal: Obama Backstabs Kurds to Appease Turkey - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...kstabs-kurds-to-appease-turkey

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy Turkey Kurds Incerlik-AFB must-read MSM lies

shared by Paul Merrell on 01 Aug 15 - No Cached
  • The Kurdish militias (YPG, PKK) have been Washington’s most effective weapon in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. But the Obama administration has sold out the Kurds in order to strengthen ties with Turkey and gain access to Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base. The agreement to switch sides was made in phone call between President Obama and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan less than 48 hours after a terrorist incident in the Turkish town of Suruc killed 32 people and wounded more than 100 others. The bombing provided Obama with the cover he needed to throw the Kurds under the bus, cave in to Turkey’s demands, and look the other way while Turkish bombers and tanks pounded Kurdish positions in Syria and Iraq. The media has characterized this shocking reversal of US policy as a “game-changer” that will improve US prospects for victory over ISIS. But what the about-face really shows is Washington’s inability to conduct a principled foreign policy as well as Obama’s eagerness to betray a trusted friend and ally if he sees some advantage in doing so.
  • Turkish President Erdogan has launched a war against the Kurds; that is what’s really happening in Syria at present. The media’s view of events–that Turkey has joined the fight against ISIS–is mostly spin and propaganda. The fact that the Kurds had been gaining ground against ISIS in areas along the Turkish border, worried political leaders in Ankara that an independent Kurdish state could be emerging. Determined to stop that possibility,  they decided to use the bombing in Suruc as an excuse to round up more than 1,000 of Erdogans political enemies (only a small percentage of who are connected to ISIS) while bombing the holy hell out of Kurdish positions in Syria and Iraq. All the while, the media has been portraying this ruthless assault on a de facto US ally, as a war on ISIS. It is not a war on ISIS. It is the manipulation of a terrorist attack to advance the belligerent geopolitical agenda of Turkish and US elites.
  • The Turks know who they’re bombing. They are bombing their 30-year long enemy, the Kurds.  Here’s more on the topic from Telesur: “A decades-old conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish PKK has been reignited. Turkey vowed Saturday to continue attacks against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), along with strikes against the Islamic State group. “The operations will continue for as long as threats against Turkey continue,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. Ankara also confirmed it carried out airstrikes against PKK sites in Iraq. While Davutoglu said any organizations that “threaten” Turkey would be targeted in a crackdown on militants, on Friday President Tayyip Erdogan said the PKK would be the main focus of attacks.”  (“Turkey Says More Anti-PKK Strikes to Come“, Telesur) Repeat: “Erdogan said the PKK would be the main focus of attacks.”
  • Paul Merrell on 01 Aug 15
     
    A must-read from Mike Whitney.
Paul Merrell

Suppressing Key Facts, How the American Public Is Deceived by the "News" | Global Research - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5435800

propaganda MSM U.S.

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • If the public is systematically lied-to by the Government and by a virtually uniformly cooperative press suppressing key facts in order to pump that lie, such as was the case during 2002 and 2003 in the lead-up to America’s invasion of Iraq, then there can’t possibly be an authentic democracy, because democracy is founded upon a truthfully informed public, and so any ‘news’ institution that violates its solemn public trust of reporting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is traitorous to democracy itself.  That’s why the press has been called “the fourth estate” of government. The first three “estates” are the aristocracy, the clergy, and the public. If the press represent not the public, but instead one of the two other classes — the aristocracy and/or the clergy — then what exists is a dictatorship by that actually ruling class against the public, not a democracy by the public. The public cannot rule in such a country. They instead are manipulated in it. They may be manipulated to believe that they rule, but it’s only a manipulated illusion then; it’s not real; it’s a fraud, of the most massive type. Such a country cannot possibly be a real democracy; it’s a fraudulent ‘democracy.’ Evidence will be presented here that democracy no longer exists in the United States. Part of this evidence is personal, something that I always prefer to avoid, but which happens to be integral to this particular news-report and analysis. So: it’s necessary, in this case.
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