http://www.conservative-talk.com/discussion/news-media/52.html
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| By Joan Swirsky
Newspaper circulations are dropping; the news watching ratings are becoming more and more fractured. With the advent of blogs, alternate media sources, Talk Radio and many others, the so-called Mainstream media is losing more power each year. Confidence in the Mainstream media, according to a recent Gallup poll is at 28%. Do we really need to cite *cough*New York Times*cough* why the media is becoming less important to our daily lives? Confidence in Mainstream Media at 28% Sowell reflects what The Media Research Center has recently documented in a study of broadcast network news coverage of the Iraq war this year. After reviewing all 1,388 Iraq stories broadcast on ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News from January 1 through September 30, MRC found: * More than half of all stories (848, or 61%) focused on negative topics or presented a pessimistic analysis, four times as many as featured U.S. or Iraqi achievements or offered an optimistic assessment (just 211 stories, or 15%). * Positive stories had fallen to seven percent and the percentage of bad news stories swelled to 73 percent of all Iraq news, a ten-to-one disparity. * Two out of every five network evening news stories (564) featured car bombings, assassinations, kidnappings or other attacks launched by the terrorists against the Iraqi people or coalition forces, more than any other topic. * Just 17 stories recounted episodes of heroism or valor by U.S. troops or featured soldiers reaching out to help the Iraqi people, while 79 stories focused on allegations of combat mistakes or outright misconduct on the part of U.S. military personnel. The only good news is that the American public is not buying what the old media are selling. |
The slide down continues. Perhaps they will get the hint soon. Perhaps not.
