In Government We Trust, apparently

Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker at 9:10 AM on May 3, 2006.

Here's a fact to make you wretch -- The American public trusts the government more than the media according to a BBC/Reuters/Media Center poll released recently.

It makes me wonder if Dubya's putting some sort of short-term memory loss drug into the American water supply. I mean, hello? The reasons for not trusting our current government could be (and have been) made into several volumes of books: WMD, "Mission accomplished," NSA, Tom DeLay, Valerie Plame, FEMA, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I mean, even Miss Mainstream Glamour magazine published an article this month uncovering the ways in which U.S. government agencies spread misinformation about reproductive health. I mean, what part of government do people still trust? Maybe the post office?

While the media world has certainly had its supply of crappy moments and characters in recent years, the evidence still seems to show that the news media at large usually contains a few more grains of "truthiness" than our current government. But, of course, when has evidence mattered to the American people? How silly of me.

As usual, Americans are the outsiders of the world in our trust for government:

Media is trusted by an average of 61 percent compared to 52 percent for governments across the countries polled. But the US bucked the trend — with government ahead of media on trust (67% vs 59%) along with Britain (51% vs 47%).

Trust in media was highest in Nigeria (88% vs 34% gov't.) followed by Indonesia (86% vs 71%), India (82% vs 66%), Egypt (74%, gov't. not asked), and Russia (58% vs 54%).

Attitudinally, Americans stand out from citizens of the other countries surveyed on a number of dimensions. They are the most critical of the news media's reporting of all sides of a story; fully 69 percent disagree that the media does this. They are also significantly more inclined to disagree (46%) that the media reports news accurately; and more likely to agree (68%) that the media covers too many 'bad news' stories.

Maria Luisa Tucker is a staff writer at AlterNet and associate editor of the Columbia Journal of American Studies.