The Real Problem with the Mainstream Media

Public perception of the mainstream media is so low that President Trump’s petty fights with CNN might actually be helping him.

We’ve all heard that CNN is “fake news.” We’ve all seen that The New York Times is “failing.” And we’ve all read that The Washington Post is “Amazon.” But while President Trump, Tweeter-in-Chief, continues to troll the media back into the dark ages, it is important to understand what is happening with the mainstream media. The media is failing because it has become a vehicle of leftist propaganda that produces narratives, with malicious intent. Conservatives must not become reactionaries, but instead must stand their ground with facts and intellectual honesty.

Often times when someone cries media bias, the left will immediately point to Fox News because of its right-wing slant. However, there are some interesting statistics that highlight the mainstream media’s overall liberal bias. First, only 7% of journalists are Republican, according to a study conducted by David Weaver and Lars Willnat, professors of journalism at Indiana University. Further, and even more shocking, The Washington Times reports that Democratic journalists outnumber Republican journalists 4-to-1.

Knowing that there is this lack of thought diversity among today’s journalists, this next statistic won’t surprise you at all: 80% of the media coverage in Trump’s first 100 days as president was negative, according to Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. They also estimated that in his best week, Trump’s positive to negative coverage ratio was 30:70.

With all of this ‘cosmopolitan’ bias the media tries to hide, the American people are losing trust. The numbers speak for themselves. According to a poll conducted by YouGov, nearly 70% of Americans believe that media reporting is biased. Additionally, only 32% of viewers say they have a “great deal of trust” in the mainstream media, reaching an all-time low, according to Gallup. More, a recent NPR/PBS poll found that 37% of Americans trust President Trump, while only 30% trust the media. So when President Trump posts a tweet of him body-slamming CNN, it may actually be to his advantage.