Who do you trust? Trump or the News Media?

By Andy May

Sloppy journalism undermines press credibility and helps Trump and other powerful politicians since their fourth-estate constitutional watch-dogs are not credible.  The press are considered less truthful than Trump by the public.  Trump is considered truthful by 49% of the public, the news media is considered truthful by only 39% according to an Emerson College poll in 2017. Gallup has found that only 32% of the public trusts the media news.

Source: Polination.

Below is a count of retracted news storied by major news organizations for 2017. The full list was compiled and described in detail by the Washington Examiner here. The NY Times and CNN lead in retractions, with the Washington Post close behind.  Fox News is way down the list. For a summary of each retracted story, see here. Note that when multiple outlets reported the retracted story, I only counted the initial report, the copy-cats were ignored.

Below is an accounting of the infamous NY Times list of “Trump Lies,” also from 2017.  I researched each supposed lie (see details here), nearly all of which were differences of opinion and not lies in the conventional meaning of the term.  I then determined if the truth is now known and documented.  In many cases it was, the table shows that in 56 cases, Trump was correct and in 22 cases the NYT was correct.  In 28 cases, both were wrong or the truth is unknown. Generally, Trump and the news media erred by slanting the facts or leaving out relevant information.

This is why Trump is winning with the public, not because he is accurate, but because the press is worse.