Back in 1996 WTMJ Radio sent me and Charlie Sykes to report on the Republican National Convention in San Diego.

One of the vendors in the jam packed San Diego Convention Center sold a black and white T-shirt with cartoon caricatures of the TV network news anchors at the time all in a row (Dan Rather CBS; Peter Jennings, ABC; Tom Brokaw, NBC). Somewhere buried in my house is I believe my own shirt that poked fun at the anchors’ lack of objectivity.

That was 26 years ago. Times haven’t changed.

The Federalist writes:

Research for a new book out next week reveals an implicit bias present throughout the White House press corps: Reporters attending in-person briefings rank 12:1 Democrat to Republican.

In “Suppression, Deception, Snobbery, and Bias: Why the Press Gets So Much Wrong―And Just Doesn’t Care,” Fox News Contributor and former Bush White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer unearths the political affiliations of those present at a White House briefing on June 7, 2021.

“Every seat was filled for the first time in over a year as the social distancing rules resulting from the COVID pandemic were relaxed,” Fleischer wrote in an excerpt shared exclusively with The Federalist. “By a ratio of 12:1, the seats were occupied by Democrats!”

Fleischer drew upon research solicited by the D.C.-based investigative firm Delve, which combed through publicly available data.

“I guess the good news is that the ratio wasn’t 24:0, like it was during my encounters with students at Columbia Journalism School. It was only 12:1,” Fleischer wrote. “No matter how you cut it, the White House briefing room does not look, sound, or register to vote like America.”

And over on the website Issues & Insights they write about their poll conducted last month that asked the following questions:

• “Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the traditional or established news media (Example: Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, CBS News, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”
• “Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the alternative news media (Example: New York Post, Washington Times, NewsMax, The Daily Caller, RealClearPolitics, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”

From these two questions, I&I/TIPP has created a monthly Traditional Media Index and an Alternative Media Index. This lets us gauge how the public view the major media over time.

First, look at June’s monthly data: Just 34% of Americans say they trust the “traditional” or established news outlets, while 58% say they have no trust. Diving a bit deeper into those numbers, only 12% describe themselves as having “a lot of trust,” while 22% say they have “quite a bit” of trust.

On the other side, 27% say they have “no trust at all” in the big media. None. And 31% express “little trust.”

Not exactly a big vote of confidence.

You think they’d catch on.

Nope.