US, British & Germans Don’t Trust Their MSM

According to a poll in 14 countries conducted for the BBC World Service, although press freedom is highly valued,

People were also asked to rate how free the press and broadcasters were in their country to report the news truthfully and without undue bias….

In the United States, Britain and Germany, only around 29% of those interviewed thought their media did a good job in reporting news accurately.

The full survey results are here.

Looking into the details, there is a deep irony. The public in the very countries that most value press freedom hold the performance of their major media, whether in private or “public” hands, in the lowest regard.

This reflects favorably on the strong attachment to truth of Americans, the British and Germans, and most West Europeans. But, at the same time, reflects the extent to which skepticism and cynicism and outright disdain of the reliability of MSM, across the political spectrum, has permeated Western publics.

The narrow incestuous worldview of media elites, coupled with repeated evidenced instances of absurdly unprofessional conduct, is widely recognized, and as witnessed by the steady drain away of their audiences is an unsustainable business practice.

According to the poll, we in the developed West do not value social harmony and political stability as highly as in the less developed or more authoritarian countries surveyed.

This helps explain why we’re more developed, as we’re more willing to take chances to progress. It, also, helps explain why we’re less willing to endure the “social harmony” of a small, overwhelmingly liberal caste that controls our media and imposes its views, especially when alternative media increasingly expose the transparent biases and shortcomings of those views in keeping us reliably informed.