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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Maybe it's the accent. When it comes to news, in a world where "fake news" has become an ideological battle cry rather than an oxymoron, Americans deem British media outlets more trustworthy than their U.S. counterparts.
The most trusted news source in the U.S. is the Economist — a venerable weekly magazine published in the U.K. — according, at least, to a recent survey conducted by the University of Missouri's Reynolds Journalism Institute.
The second most reliable news source, in the view of voluntary survey respondents, is public television (with the Public Broadcasting Service separately ranking sixth among survey respondents), followed by Reuters and BBC. National Public Radio placed just ahead of PBS at No. 5, while the U.K.'s the Guardian clinched the seventh spot. The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Morning News rounded out the 10 most trusted brands. The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp. NWS, +0.49% NWSA, +0.65% , the parent of MarketWatch.
At the other extreme, Occupy Democrats — a political website with a self-professed agenda of counterbalancing the right-wing Tea Party — took the dubious honor of most untrustworthy.
BuzzFeed, Breitbart and Infowars also scored dismally on the trust-o-meter, with a BuzzFeed representative questioning the poll's merit and methods. "This is not a poll of how much trust Americans have in their news outlets. It's an open-ended, methodologically flawed survey of people who happen to fill out a form on the homepage of their local news outlet," said Matt Mittenthal, spokesman for BuzzFeed News. "No one familiar with how polling works would consider this to be reliable or scientific."
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @02:15PM (8 children)
That would be ideal.
Yet a problem remains. Whatever the facts actually are, there will be people who do not like those facts. (And this shoe fits both the goose and the gander without need of any special cables or adapter dongles, not that I would mix metaphores)
Some of the people who do not like actual facts, in a neutral tone, without tribal signalling, happen to have money, power and/or influence. Or a big megaphone. An agenda. A big online community. Or a lot of faithful donors who will vote the way God tells them to vote.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @02:26PM (6 children)
> Whatever the facts actually are, there will be people who do not like those facts.
And those people are called republicans.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @05:30PM (3 children)
People who do not like facts, will not argue the facts. Instead they need to find an expert, just one, who will disagree with other scientists. Now a thing called a Controversy has been manufactured. (Assuming its constructor doesn't upchuck an exception.)
Once there is a controversy, it is no longer necessary to argue the facts. When facts are brought up, they are controversial.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:11PM
Like I said... republicans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 06 2019, @06:18PM (1 child)
I was trying to lose weight and someone suggested getting whooping cough since when they got it as a child they coughed so much they couldn't eat for like a month.
Now here comes your denial of that "fact".
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 06 2019, @10:00PM
I wouldn't deny that this could happen to you.
But that doesn't make it good dieting advice.
If you eat an entire cake without cutting it, you technically only had one piece.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 06 2019, @06:31PM (1 child)
DannyB did a good job of making a neutral point. You're giving us a good example of a tribal call.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 07 2019, @12:49AM
Republican!!!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 06 2019, @06:29PM
Sure, but the topic of discussion was news sources and how trusted they are. Those rules of thumb are just the ones I use, offered up in case anyone else might find them useful also.
Washington DC delenda est.