Barely a third of Republicans polled by Pew Research Center in June said that they trust the establishment media (ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, etc.) to provide them with unbiased, “fair and balanced” news. Five years ago, more than two thirds of them trusted the media as their primary news source.
Overall, fewer than three out of five Americans of all political persuasions have “some trust” in the mainstream media, down from 65 percent in 2016. There’s even been some substantial credibility slippage among Democrats as well, according to Pew. “This is,” wrote the group, “the smallest share over the past five years.”
Not surprisingly, Pew also reported that the percentage of those who don’t trust the media “at all” jumped from six percent five years ago to 14 percent currently.
This confirms what Statista.com reported on Monday: “The credibility of almost all the news media sources in [our] ranking was considerably lower in 2021 than in previous years, highlighting consumers’ growing concerns about reliability, bias, and trustworthiness in the news business.”
The media’s credibility has been slipping for years. In 2019, for example, ABC enjoyed a rating of 63 percent among those polled. Today it’s at 58 percent.
Similar declines are reported at CBS and NBC. The New York Times’ credibility has slipped from 53 percent two years ago to 50 percent at present, along with CNN. Fox News has slipped from 52 percent to 44 percent over the same period, while Huffington Post suffered the most grievous drop, from just 38 percent two years ago to 31 percent now.
Hugh Hewitt, a radio talk show host, law professor, and conservative political commentator, writes from inside the establishment media. He is a regular on NBC News and MSNBC and writes frequently for the Washington Post.
In May he declared in an article published by the Post that “the media has a big credibility problem”, adding, “Media bias has grown worse in recent years. From story selection to story framing, bias leaps off the page or screen and cannot be escaped. The hazard of this vast tilt left is the belief among millions — perhaps a majority — of Americans that [the] media cannot be trusted.”
That leaves those searching for reliable sources for their news in a quandary: where to go? Many are turning to The Epoch Times, which is enjoying a surge in popularity. So are Newsmax, OneAmerica News, and American Thinker.
The New American magazine and its website, TheNewAmerican.com, makes every effort to “tell the story behind the story.”
Missing from the consternation about media bias is the long and deep influence of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Established in 1921 as a private organization whose purpose was to “awaken America to its worldwide responsibilities,” it has insinuated itself into every major part of the culture since its founding.
Richard Harwood, a former Washington Post senior editor, described the CFR as “the nearest thing we have to a ruling establishment in the United States”, adding that many members have enormous influence in the media:
The membership of these journalists in the Council, however they may think of themselves, is an acknowledgment of their active and important role in public affairs and of their ascension into the American ruling class.
They do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it. They are part of that establishment … sharing most of its values and world views.
Media personalities constitute only about five percent of the overall CFR network. Key members of the organization have included:
Several US Presidents and Vice Presidents of both parties;
Almost all Secretaries of State, Defense, and the Treasury;
Many high-ranking commanders of the U.S. military and NATO;
Some of the most influential Members of Congress (notably in foreign and security policy);
Almost all National Security Advisors, CIA Directors, Ambassadors to the U.N., Chairs of the Federal Reserve, Presidents of the World Bank, and Directors of the National Economic Council;
Many prominent academics, especially in key fields such as Economics and Political Science; and
Many top executives of Wall Street, policy think tanks, universities, and NGOs.
CFR insiders, including political journalist Richard Rovere, have revealed the influence of the CFR across the political, economic, educational, and cultural spectrum:
The directors of the CFR make up a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation. [I]t rarely fails to get one of its members, or at least one of its allies, into the White House. In fact, it generally is able to see to it that both nominees are men acceptable to it.
This is what makes The New American unique: it reveals “the rest of the story” — that is, little happens domestically or internationally (e.g., Afghanistan) without CFR influence and direction.
In the instant case Pew Research merely reveals the awakening of the American consumer to the extensive bias toward collectivism but without explaining that it is a deliberate part of an agenda to lessen America’s influence in the world, preparing it for its role as a part of a world run by CFR elites and its friends in the media, the culture, government, education, and in Hollywood.
