“People trust newspapers like The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times more than commercial broadcast news but less than public broadcasting, according to a survey released Thursday and summarized by John Eggerton on the Broadcasting & Cable Web site.
“A Harris telephone survey, commissioned by the Public Relations Society of America, found that 61% of the sample generally trusted news on PBS and NPR, 56% trusted major newspapers, and 53% trusted commercial broadcasts and cable news. These “trust” percentages were created by combining “trust completely,” “trust,” and “trust somewhat” responses. Newspapers received the highest “trust completely” response, with 13%, versus 10% for noncommercial news and 4% for commercial news.”
One would find similar results in Australia. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, with all its faults, is trusted and respected. Accusations of bias and prejudice may get the juices going of brave cultural warriors, but the general populace cares little about this faux battle.
The ABC, of course, is increasingly cowered in the face of government interference and takes fewer journalistic risks.