In U.S., Confidence in Newspapers, TV News Remains a Rarity
Another study has come out showing ridiculously low “confidence” in newspaper and TV news among the American public. In Gallup’s annual poll, just 25 percent of those surveyed reported a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspaper (TV news got 22 percent; it’s heartening to see the public is finalizing realizing how pointless TV news is…)
But buried in the poll results is an interesting finding, which may prove good news for the journalism industry: By age group, by far the category with the most amount of confidence is also the youngest: 49 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence.
As a journalist, we’re always bombarded with the fact that newspaper readership among the young adult demographic is much lower than that of older adults, supposedly spelling catastrophe for the industry (my personal opinion - young people have never read newspapers, because they can’t afford it and don’t care about the news). It’s good to see that maybe the future will have more respect, or at least “confidence” in our reporting.
