Back in April we witnessed the media during one of its worst times when, right after the Boston Marathon bombings, we saw headlines on April 17 like, “Official: Suspect in Custody in Boston Bombings” and “Suspect Nabbed in Boston Marathon Bombing.”

Neither headline was true. In the rush to be first, they failed in one major area: Being accurate. The suspect was actually “nabbed” two days later.

Now we find a new poll from Gallup telling us “Americans’ confidence in newspapers fell slightly to 23% this year.” Confidence peaked for newspapers back in 1979 at 51%.

If you believe in television news, guess what – the confidence in television news is also sitting at 23%. It peaked at 46% back in 1993, according to Gallup.

So, as Gallup puts it, “Fewer than one in four Americans confident in newspapers, TV news.”

Ouch.  Continue reading →