Trust in journalism has hit all-time low

So says a report published by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. The report gives some shocking figures but the reasons given for the decline miss the mark.

Published by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the report showed that in the past 17 years, the public has come to see the press as self-serving and discreditable. The number of those who thought the press was highly professional fell from 72 percent to 49 percent, while the number of those who thought the press covered-up its mistakes rose from 13 percent to 67 percent.

This lack of trust has translated into a decline in readership as the State of the Media also showed. According to the report, the number of newspaper readers has fallen from its height, 75 percent in 1992, to 60 percent in 2004, due to distrust and other factors.

I like this bit:

Bossen also said that while there is no single reason why the public is losing trust in the media, he believes it can partly be attributed to the variety of news sources that have become available.

How about because the media have been caught lying so much?

UPDATE

Let me see if I can help answer their question - "Why does everyone seem to hate me"?

First we have a study that finds that the media is biased against Bush.

“The criticism that George Bush got worse coverage than John Kerry is supported by the data,” the report concluded. “Looking across all media, campaign coverage that focused on Bush was three times as negative as coverage of Kerry.”

Well that would certainly turn off about 60 million voting Americans who probably used to read the press.

And then there is lying by omission.

Come to think of it, maybe the report is right, there is no single reason people no longer trust the media. There's plenty of reasons to not trust them.
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