Ironic Curtain - Russian Vs. US Mainstream Media

'Russia Today', a TV channel broadcast in English, has laid into the US mainstream media today. In a video piece called "News or sensation: Who trusts the mainstream?" first broadcast over UK terrestrial TV at 1022h, it was reported that 57% of Americans do not trust their media to accurately report the news.

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Lori Harfenist cited a Gallup poll then went vox-popping. Significant contextual omissions in her report included abscence of comparators (for example, how many Russians trust Russia Today? or, how many Americans trusted their media 10 years ago) and failure to report the survey method.

Survey data can be manipulated and mis-reported in many ways, including the framing of the questions. Consider these different questions, all of which could have produced the result cited above:

1. Do you trust the media to accurately report the news (yes/no) ?
2. If you had all day to read papers, watch TV, listen to radio or read websites, would you trust the New York Times as your sole source of information (yes/no)?
3. If you knew a group of responsible people who reported the news as volunteers, would you trust them more than an advertisiing-funded media outlet (yes/no)?
4. Do you trust the maintream media to report the truth... not at all... a bit... yes... totally?

You might want to view the report on Russia Today (who proudly advertise the availability of their content on youtube) then try to guess which of the four questions above was closest to what the survey asked, before you take a look at the original report on gallup.com.

The best bit about the Russia Today report has to be Lori's final sentence "...if you are one of the many who don't trust the media, it may be time to consider a new source - outside the mainstream." Any examples? Of course not.

Contact email: marker at indymedia dot org