Public Policy Polling’s News Trust Poll

Public Policy Polling recently released the results of its third annual News Trust Poll. This poll provides the most important information that can be found anywhere on how the American public interacts with the press. PPP asked 700 likely voters whether or not they trusted each television news source and broke down the results by demographics.

PBS is the only news-source that that over fifty percent of respondents trusted. 52 percent of those polled found it trustworthy. That breath of support, the greatest of any news channel polled, does not translate into ratings success. Its nightly newscast, PBS Newshour, has the smallest audience out of all the nightly newscasts. It is curious that the most widely trusted television news-source has the smallest audience. 

When respondents were asked to identify the news-source they personally trusted the most, Fox News received the most votes, at 34 percent. Unsurprisingly, this was due largely to conservative respondents. This result represents the depth of support for a news source. When respondents were asked to identify the source they personally trusted the least, Fox News also received the most votes, at 34 percent. Also unsurprisingly, this was due largely to liberal and moderate responses.

The most important insight from this poll is how liberals, moderates, and conservatives interact with the news differently. Liberals trust everyone except Fox News. That means that for each news source other than fox, more liberals trusted the source than distrusted it. Moderates have the same response. Conservatives have the opposite reaction; they don’t trust anyone but Fox News.

The results are the same when broken down by party affiliation; however, the trend is clearer when broken down by ideology. The demographic groups are closer in size when broken down by party.  Democrats and Independents trust everyone but Fox. Republicans don’t trust anyone but Fox. I have included response numbers for both ideology and party breakdowns.

		Percent of respondents who described themselves as
		Liberal	Moderate	Conservative
		28	27	44
	Base	Liberal	Moderate	Conservative
ABC
Trust	37	53	56	15
Distrust	40	18	17	69
Unsure	22	29	27	16
CBS
Trust	40	59	57	17
Distrust	42	20	19	69
Unsure	18	22	23	13
CNN
Trust	43	65	56	21
Distrust	39	16	22	64
Unsure	18	20	22	16
Comedy Central
Trust	28	43	36	13
Distrust	46	30	34	65
Unsure	26	27	29	22
Fox News
Trust	45	19	28	72
Distrust	42	70	55	15
Unsure	13	10	17	12
MSNBC
Trust	38	59	49	18
Distrust	43	21	27	67
Unsure	19	20	24	15
NBC
Trust	44	70	60	17
Distrust	38	14	15	68
Unsure	17	15	24	15
PBS
Trust	52	76	66	28
Distrust	30	13	11	54
Unsure	17	10	23	19

		Percent of respondents who identify as
		Democrat	Republican	Independent
		41	35	24
	Base	Democrat	Republican	Independent
ABC
Trust	37	57	14	41
Distrust	40	19	70	31
Unsure	22	24	16	28
CBS
Trust	40	58	17	44
Distrust	42	23	71	30
Unsure	18	19	12	26
CNN
Trust	43	65	18	44
Distrust	39	16	67	35
Unsure	18	19	15	21
Comedy Central
Trust	28	36	12	37
Distrust	46	32	71	35
Unsure	26	32	17	28
Fox News
Trust	45	25	73	36
Distrust	42	61	17	48
Unsure	13	14	10	16
MSNBC
Trust	38	56	18	40
Distrust	43	23	69	37
Unsure	19	20	14	23
NBC
Trust	44	67	17	48
Distrust	38	17	69	29
Unsure	17	16	14	24
PBS
Trust	52	66	26	66
Distrust	30	17	56	15
Unsure	17	17	17	19

Liberals and moderates generally trust the mainstream media. Conservatives do not. Conservatives believe that most news sources have an overwhelming liberal bias, to the point they cannot be trusted. Thus inherent in the claim of liberal bias is malpractice, concepts that I view as distinct. It is my belief that the conservative perception of liberal bias has more to do with the criticisms of Rush Limbaugh and conservative politicians than it does with the news coverage these sources produce. Often our views of news sources come from others’ characterizations rather than our interactions with them ourselves.

Certainly you can find instances of false or misleading coverage in mainstream news sources that benefit Democrats or promote a liberal agenda. You can also find instances of false, misleading, or incomplete coverage that benefit Republicans and promote a conservative agenda. Often, for fear of being accused of liberal bias, the news media unfairly assigns equal blame to both sides in a partisan dispute (see debt ceiling) or treats the basic background facts to a story as if they are in dispute, when experts in the fields almost universally agree (see global warming). Over time, however, most reporting at mainstream news outlets is balanced and trustworthy. I think we have much more to fear from false-balance reporting than from liberal bias.

The other primary problem with mainstream reports is that they often get reaction to a major story from the president and from the leaders of the Republicans in Congress. Experts in the field, citizen activists, and even Congressmen who disagree with their party leadership on the issue are ignored. This was seen in many articles following Obama’s plan for withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

Next year I hope PPP adds more news sources to the list, as they did this year. Major newspapers like the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times, as well as NPR and major talk radio personalities should be added. The responses for those news sources would be a valuable addition to the most insightful public opinion poll on the news media.

Obama’s War on Whistleblowers

The Obama administration has prosecuted five whistleblowers for leaking classified information to the press. This is an unprecedented number; only three cases were prosecuted in the roughly 40 years prior to the Obama Administration. I have written extensively on Bradley Manning’s pre-trial detention and pre-trial hearing. Now I bring you the stories of the other four whistleblowers that have been prosecuted by the Obama Administration.  

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling

Jeffrey Alexander Sterling worked for the CIA from May 1993 through January 2002. Much of his work during that time focused on Iran and its nuclear program. In 2000 Sterling filed a complaint alleging racial discrimination with the CIA’s Equal Employment Opportunity office (Sterling is black). After Sterling left the agency he sued them for discrimination.

In 2003 Sterling discussed a classified CIA operation with the Senate Intelligence Committee before contacting James Risen of the New York Times. Risen planned to write an article about the operation for the Times; however, the paper decided not to publish it after the government told the Times what they believed the “national security implications” of the article would be.

Risen decided to publish the details of the operation in his 2006 book, “State of War.” Known as Operation Merlin, Risen stated that in 2000, under the Clinton Administration, the CIA gave flawed blueprints for a nuclear bomb triggering device to a Russian nuclear scientist who worked for the CIA. The scientist was supposed to give the flawed designs to the Iranians and in the process slow their development of nuclear weapons. Instead, the scientist pointed out the flaws in the plans to the Iranians. According to Risen, the operation, “allowed the Iranians to extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.” The CIA has always maintained that Risen’s description of Operation Merlin is false and inaccurate.

In January 2011 the Obama Justice Department charged Jeffrey Alexander Sterling with disclosing National Defense Information and obstruction of justice. The prosecution alleges that Sterling leaked false information about Operation Merlin in retaliation for the CIA’s handling of his discrimination complaint. Eric Holder, the head of the Obama Justice Department, authorized a request for a subpoena for Risen in an attempt to get him to reveal his source in court. The judge in the case refused to grant the subpoena. Sterling’s trial is ongoing.

Thomas Drake

In 1989, Thomas Drake worked as a computer software expert for a private company that was working for the National Security Administration. At the time, the NSA was tackling the problem of capturing communications across new mediums like the internet. Two programs were being considered that would do just that: Thinthread and Trailblazer.  Thinthread was less expensive and better protected Americans’ privacy but the NSA decided to go with Trailblazer. Drake was hired as an executive at the NSA in 2001. His first day on the job was September 11^th.

Drake still supported Thinthread and aired his concerns through the appropriate channels, he told his bosses, the NSA inspector general, the Defense Department Inspector General, and Congressional intelligence committees, all to no avail. In 2005 the New York Times revealed that under the Bush administration, the NSA was running a warrantless wiretapping operation. Drake believed that the administration was covering up the true extent of the program in their subsequent comments to the press. Drake finally took his concerns to Siobhan Gorman, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. In 2006 and 2007, Gorman wrote a series of articles critical of NSA programs, including Trailblazer. The series won a Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

In 2007 the FBI raided Drake’s home, taking computers, photos, and books. In April 2010, the Justice Department, now under the Obama Administration, indicted Thomas Drake with Willful Retention of Information relating to the National Defense, obstructing justice, and making false statements to investigators.  He was not originally charged with disclosing classified information to the press, instead he was charged with retaining information relating to the national defense under the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 modification of the Espionage Act of 1917. The charges carried a total of 35 years in prison.

In 2011 the prosecution dropped all major charges mid-trial and granted Drake a plea deal where he would plead guilty to the misdemeanor of misusing the agency’s computer system by providing official NSA information to an unauthorized person. Drake accepted and was sentenced to a year’s probation and community service. Federal Judge Richard Bennett, who heard the case, chastised the government for dragging out the investigation for four years before dropping all major charges.

Shamai Leibowitz

[Author’s Note (7/19/2012): This passage was based upon Silverstein’s claims. At the time of the publication of this article, they were unchallenged. Since then, Leibowitz has come forward alleging that Silverstein’s claims were false and that he had leaked information about another topic to someone else. You can read about Leibowitz’s allegations here. Other than this parenthetical, this post remains as it was originally written.]

Shamai Leibowitz was born in Israel and went on to become a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. From January to August 2009, Shamai worked as a Hebrew translator for the FBI. Shamai, who writes the blog Pursuing Justice, leaked classified information to Richard Silverstein who writes the blog Tikun Olam. The leaked classified information was transcripts of conversations at the Israeli embassy that were obtained through FBI wiretaps. Leibowitz and Silverstein felt that these conversations showed that the lobbying of US politicians by Israeli diplomats was pushing the US toward what they believed was a disastrous military confrontation with Iran. Nothing in the documents revealed any illegal behavior on the part of the US or Israel.

Shamai Leibowitz pleaded guilty to disclosing classified information on May 24, 2010. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison. At the time of his sentencing even his judge was unaware what information Leibowitz had leaked. That is a sad testament to how our judiciary handles national security affairs. The details of the leak became widely known in September 2011 when Silverstein discussed the leak and his view of its significance. 

At his sentencing, Leibowitz expressed sorrow in being separated from his 6-year-old twins, “At the formative time of their life, when they’re 6 years old and they’re just finishing first grade, I’ll be absent from their life, and that is the most terrible thing about this case.”

Stephen Jin-Woo Kim

Stephen Kim worked as an analyst for a contractor of the State Department. In June 2009 he told James Rosen of Fox News that North Korea would likely respond to a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning its nuclear and ballistic missile tests with a nuclear test. The test didn’t occur. In August 2010 the Obama Justice Department charged Kim with the Unauthorized Disclosure of National Defense Information and for lying to the FBI. Kim’s trial is ongoing.

So much for the candidate who said, “Government Whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal.” (Hint: it’s the man whose name is in the title)

The American News Media

An Overview

Much of my coverage of the media concerns the factchecking of specific claims or segments. In this post, I plan to take a big picture look at the American news media by discussing its most influential and farthest reaching news sources. As with virtually all media analysis, my commentary will be completely subjective. Much of my commentary will seem self apparent to my American readers, but for those who do not live in the United States, I hope it will serve as a valuable introduction to the American news-media.

Newspapers

National newspapers usually cover important stories with more depth than television news. They also have a smaller audience, and thus avoid the unimportant human interest stories that periodically consume TV news. Newspapers were around before any other mode of spreading the news.

The largest circulating newspaper in the United States is the Wall Street Journal. Its reporting is exceptional, but its editorial page is conservative and often fraught with errors. The New York Times is a great newspaper with a liberal editorial page. The Washington Post is famous for breaking the Watergate scandal in the Nixon administration. USA Today and the Los Angeles Times are also credible and influential national newspapers.

Talk Radio

Talk Radio in the United States is known primarily for being racist, inflammatory, and inaccurate.  Most of the most popular talk radio personalities (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, and Neil Boortz) fall into this category. The most popular talk radio hosts are conservative, but even some of the liberal commentators are known for inflammatory rhetoric that sometimes crosses the line. You have to get farther down the list to hosts like the conservative Laura Ingram or financial advise-giver Dave Ramsey before the hosts become reasonable.

National Public Radio

NPR is my favorite source for news. They cover important topics in depth and from a variety of viewpoints. Their investigative journalism is one of the standard bearers in the industry. I explained why NPR is my favorite news outlet in an earlier post. NPR’s sister outlet, PBS, is also known as public television. Its reporting is very good as well. 

Network Television News

First, let’s get some terminology out the way. A television network is a channel that sends signals over the air in addition to carrying the signal through cable. Thus in technical terms, all TV networks are channels, but not all TV channels are network, some are exclusively cable. 

 

 

There are three networks that carry national news: ABC, NBC, and CBS. 

 

ABC is the most likely to obsess over the latest unimportant human interest story like the Casey Anthony trial or the Conrad Murray trial. They also do the best coverage of poverty as well as the best debunking of deceptive advertising.  

 

NBC primarily covers breaking and developing news stories. 

 

CBS is best known for its analytical pieces on important public policy issues. Most of CBS’s best work is done on 60 minutes, which does agenda setting investigative journalism as well as the less important, but still interesting, biographical pieces on singers and politicians. ABC and NBC both have shows that imitate the investigative style of 60 minutes. 

 

Each of the networks has programs that fit into distinct categories.  All of them have early newscasts at 4 AM that greatly surpass the quality of the news on their regular morning shows. 

 

Each also has morning shows that are known to focus on fashion, celebrity gossip, viral videos, royal weddings, and all other forms of non-fiction not fit to be considered news. CBS’s morning show is the only one that covers important issues with any regularity, and it will be reformatted soon with new hosts.

Each network also has an evening newscast that lasts a half hour. Many older people have developed a habit of watching the news on these newscasts at 5:30, from a time when we didn’t have 24 hour news channels. That is a good habit to have, the quality of the evening newscasts are quite high. 

 

ABC has a news show that airs at 9 PM called Nightline. It got its start during the Iran hostage crises during the Carter administration.

Each network also has a Sunday news show where they interview politicians and pundits on national politics. They are all high quality.

Cable News

There are three cable news channels that carry news 24/7.  

 

Fox News is the conservative channel. Its opinion programming regularly carries inaccurate information about issues of public importance (like the stimulus or climate change) and invents fake scandals through the use of deceptive video editing or outright falsehoods. Its news side is fairly reliable, even though it doesn’t do much investigative journalism and is clearly conservative.

CNN is the most balanced cable channel. It has its moments of misconduct, but they are rare and far between. CNN’s best journalist is Anderson Cooper, who is known for his “keeping them honest” segments. I am also a fan of Christine Romans and Ali Velshi because of the economic knowledge they bring to their reporting.

MSNBC is the liberal channel. Like Fox, its news shows are reliable but slanted. This often comes in the form of inviting on more guests from the political party the channel supports. MSNBC’s opinion hosts make mistakes from time to time, but never invent fake stories out of whole cloth like Fox’s pundits do. I find MSNBC opinion programming to be mostly trustworthy.

Each of the three cable news channels falls for irrelevant court room dramas and celebrity mishaps during their news coverage but not nearly to the degree of NBC and ABC’s network morning shows.  Each channel also does some good work as well.

There is also one other 24 hour cable channel that carries stories some people mistake for news: HLN. They mostly cover courtroom dramas and celebrity mishaps. The things that they cover that are important get at most a three-sentence summary, hence the name Headline News.

This is far from every important or enlightening news outlet in the United States. However, they are the largest and most important to understanding the American news landscape.

Author’s Note (5/25/2012): I have written an addendum to this article which contains information about organizations I did not mention in this post. To learn about the Associated Press, Thomas Hartmann, and C-SPAN, click the link above. 

 

 

Hope and Change

The Broken Promises of the Obama Administration

After writing a satirical take on Republican flip-flops, I decided to write one on President Obama as well. 

 

After writing Obama’s version, I was struck by the different motivations behind changing positions. 

 

The Republican candidates appeared to change their positions due to political expediency; they think it's what voters want to hear. 

 

Many of Obama’s flip-flops and broken promises result from Congress. Congress was largely responsible for keeping Guantanamo open, and it was Congressmen who wrote the Health Care Reform bill and Dodd-Frank, not the administration. 

 

Other broken promises resulted from the corruption of power, like Obama’s poor record on transparency and his prosecution of whistleblowers. 

 

The change in the time-table for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq was also Obama’s decision. I think that the time-table we ended up with was the correct one, even if Obama was trying to extend it. My biggest disagreement with President Obama is with something he has been consistent on since the beginning, Afghanistan.

Without further ado, we join our satirical heroes rejoicing on election night in Nov. 2008, after winning the presidential election.   

Obama: I can’t believe it.

Biden: You better believe it Barack; you are now the president-elect of the United States.

Obama: This is such a historic opportunity. Democrats also won large majorities in the House and Senate. This is our chance to do what Democrats have dreamed of for generations, finally pass comprehensive health care reform.

Biden: Universal Coverage is finally within sight. 

Obama: And we’re going to do it right. There will be no mandates to buy health insurance. Following that logic, we could solve homelessness by requiring people to buy a home. Those who don’t have health insurance don’t have it because they can’t afford it, pure and simple.

One of the ways that we can help make health care more affordable is to provide the people with a public option for health insurance that won’t have to use people’s health care premiums to pay for  a company’s profit.

And the policy-making will be done out in the open, on c-span. The public will make sure that the bill is fair and that lobbyists and unscrupulous politicians don’t corrupt the process.

 

 

Biden: And we will put new regulations on the banks to make sure we never see another financial collapse like this one again.

Obama: And in the meantime, we’ll create an agency that will renegotiate the loans of Americans facing foreclosure so that they can stay in their homes.

Biden: We’ll finally put this country on the right track again. 

 

 

Obama: We will reverse the disastrous and counterproductive national security policy of George Bush. I will end that unnecessary and costly war in Iraq within 18 months. Guantanamo Bay Prison, the ultimate symbol of the brutality and lawlessness of the George W Bush administration will be closed within a year. 

We must remember the brave whistleblowers who brought the injustices of the former administration to light. Whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and will be protected from reprisal. Our administration will be more transparent and accountable than any before.

Biden: You bet. Well, we have a lot on our plate; I suggest you get some sleep before we begin changing the world.

Obama: See you tomorrow, Joe. 

 

 

Egyptian Dissident Freed!

Alaa Abdel Fattah released from jail

Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah was released from prison on Christmas day. Fattah had been charged by the Egyptian military with inciting clashes between the Coptic Christians and the military at a demonstration outside Egypt’s State TV. Observers from human rights groups believe that the charges against Alaa were brought to hide the Egyptian military’s responsibility for the confrontation and to silence a vocal critic of Egypt’s military.

During Alaa’s 2 months imprisonment, his son was born. On December 28, Alaa described his detention and the state of the Egyptian revolution on Democracy Now. Alaa described being initially imprisoned for 5 days in a cell that was unsanitary and only being allowed 10 minutes a day to use the bathroom. He said that others who had been imprisoned in relation to the same incident had been tortured.

Alaa’s release follows several important developments in Egypt.

In November, the protests in Tahrir grew considerably. The activists demanded that the military immediately hand over power to a civilian government. A rival pro-military group of Egyptians organized to oppose the Tahrir activists. Chris Hays discussed these developments with an Egyptian journalist.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mona Elthaway, an Egyptian-born American journalist, covered the November protests and was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted and detained by the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior and Military Intelligence. In an appearance on The Dylan Ratigan Show, Elthaway called for the end of US military aid to Egypt and for US companies to stop selling the Egyptian military weapons and teargas.  

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

All the while, Egypt has been voting for its parliament. The election takes place in a three part process that began November 28 and will extend into next year. Initial results show that the Islamists parties are winning by a dramatic margin with the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties winning close to 70 percent of the vote. Both groups have said that they will respect Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

In mid-December, Jihan Hafiz filed a report for The Real News showing plain clothed Egyptian soldiers thronging rocks at protestors. The report also stated, “The army, the police, and plain clothed thugs rushed into tahrir square, beating and arresting everyone in sight, destroying tents and make-shift clinics, and attacking both doctors and journalists.”

On December 29, the Egyptian military raided the offices of several human rights groups in Cairo including organizations funded by the US government; this lead to a critical response from the State Department.

Even though Alaa Abdul Fattah is now free, the Egyptian military continues its repression of Egyptian rights.