I published the story below in 2013, and someone read it
yesterday:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-most-trusted-man-in-america-part-2_18.html
One of the opening paragraphs is this one:
“As
a society, we’ve become increasingly cynical over time. According to
a recent Pew Research Center study, our “believability ratings” of 13 news
organizations (national newspapers, cable news outlets, broadcast TV networks,
and NPR) has declined dramatically in the last 10 years. Significantly, there’s
a marked difference by politically party affiliation, since Republicans are
much more cynical about the news they receive than Democrats. By itself, that
may help to explain why Congress currently has the lowest approval rating it
has held in the last 40 years.”
(Congressional
approval rating in 2024 was 19% - and that is an improvement)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/207579/public-approval-rating-of-the-us-congress/
The link below will take you to the 2012 Pew Research website:
When this poll was published in 2012, it showed that believability
in news organizations had dropped from 71% in 2002 to 56% in 2012.
The poll also showed that the most reliable source was local
TV news, with credibility of 65%. Fox News was on the low end of believability,
at 49%.
Today, local TV news is not as reliable as
it used to be due to the fact that the Salem Media Group owns a large number of
outlets around the country.
Salem Media Group, Inc. (formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an
American radio broadcaster,
internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher based in Irving, Texas, targeting audiences interested
in Christian values and
what it describes as "family-themed content and conservative
values"
Salem Media Group owns 117 radio stations in 38 markets, including 60
stations in the top 25 markets and 29 in the top 10, making it tied with Audacy for the fifth-largest radio
broadcaster.
In addition to its radio properties, the company owns:
·
Salem Radio Network,
which syndicates talk, news and music programming to approximately 2,400
affiliates.
·
Salem Media
Representatives, a radio advertising company.
·
Salem Web Network, an Internet provider of
Christian content and online streaming with over 100 Christian content and
conservative opinion websites.
·
Salem Publishing, a
publisher of Christian themed magazines.
·
Conservative
websites Townhall.com, RedState, Hot Air, and PJ Media, as well as Twitter aggregator Twitchy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_Media_Group
The other organization that owns a lot of properties is the Sinclair
Broadcast Group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb
of Cockeysville, Maryland, the company is the
second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of
stations, after Nexstar Media Group, owning or operating 193 stations across the
country in over 100 markets, covering 40% of American households. It is the
largest owner of stations affiliated with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW.
A
2019 study in the American
Political Science Review found that "stations bought
by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and
move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction
relative to other stations operating in the same market" The
company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its
stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read
prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial
content, including warnings about purported "fake news" in mainstream
media, while Trump has tweeted support for watching Sinclair over CNN and NBC.
Pew Researched conducted another survey in 2024. This time,
the main source of political news is FOX – the same organization that was fined
$787 million for lying to its audience about the 2020 election.
Since 2012, our news sources have become increasingly fragmented,
with a lot more people getting their information from podcasts and Twitter/X.
One of the most prominent podcasters is Joseph James
Rogan, whose podcast is one of the most
influential and most watched podcasts in the world, with nearly 20,000,000 followers.
In early 2022, the video platform Rumble offered
Rogan $100 million to switch from Spotify. Variety reported
that Rogan had declined the offer.
In December 2024, Spotify confirmed that The Joe Rogan Experience was the
top podcast on its platform for a fifth consecutive year.
Rogan
has voiced support for same-sex
marriage, recreational
drug legalization, universal health care, universal basic income, gun rights, and free speech, while
opposing cancel culture and military
adventurism.
He
supported Donald Trump in 2024,
having previously endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020. Rogan
has been criticized for promoting conspiracy
theories, COVID-19 misinformation, and for hosting
guests who spread misinformation and pseudoscience.
Joe Rogan has an estimated net worth of $190,000,000 in 2023, and his net worth is expected to grow at a rate of 28%
each year, according to Forbes.
Joe Rogan’s average annual earnings are estimated at $141,000,000 a
year—this includes around $60,000,000 from his Spotify deal, $48,000,000 from
his podcast sponsors, and about $6,000,000 in YouTube earnings.
Rogan’s assets are valued at about $135,000,000 (his fifteen real
estate properties priced at about $150,000,000 and an investment portfolio of
$20,000,000).
Alex
Jones and Infowars spread a lot of misinformation in the past, but he is now
completely out of business.
On
July 30, 2022, amidst a $150 million lawsuit brought against Jones and Infowars by
Sandy Hook families, Free Speech Systems filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. On September
24, 2024, a Houston bankruptcy judge ordered the liquidation of Infowars and
Free Speech Systems at two auctions to be held later that year.[On
November 14, it was announced that Global Tetrahedron—publishers of the news satire publication The Onion—had acquired the assets of Infowars,
with plans to temporarily shut it down and relaunch it in 2025 as a satirical news website; however, the
original website was restored by Jones the next day after his lawyers alleged
irregularities in the auction, and the bankruptcy judge put the sale on hold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infowars
The
other individual who controls a lot of information is Elon Musk, who is now the
richest man in the world.
In
2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion.
Reactions
to the buyout were mixed, with praise for Musk's planned reforms and vision for
the company, particularly his calls for greater free speech, but criticism over
fears of a potential rise in misinformation and disinformation, harassment, and hate speech on the
platform. Within the United States, conservatives have largely
supported the acquisition, while many liberals and former Twitter employees have voiced
concerns about Musk's intentions. Since becoming owner, Musk has faced
backlash for his handling of the company and account suspensions, including the December 2022 suspensions of ten
journalists.
In
July 2023, the Twitter service was rebranded as X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk
If you are wondering how the worst president in our country’s history
got re-elected, you can blame Elon Musk, and the details can be found in the
article below:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2024/11/how-americas-worst-president-got-re.html
In addition to the $45 million that Musk spent on mid-leading
ads, he also contributed more than $250 million to Trump’s campaign. The most
recent estimate is that he spent $277 million to elect Trump and other Republican
candidates.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-277-million-trump-republican-candidates-donations/
What can you do to make yourself better informed?
First of all, I would recommend getting your information from
a variety of sources, both liberal and conservative. Like most people, I got a
lot of news from Facebook, but we DO get political news on television,
primarily from MSNBC,
One example of a conservative publication is The Daily Caller,
which was founded by Tucker Carlson in 2010.
On the liberal side, I read a LOT of newspapers, most of which
have a balanced approach to the news.
I subscribe to 6 newspapers (The Arizona Republic, the Tucson Daily Star, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.)
One of the best sources to analyze news sources is mediabias/factcheck
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/
It rated the Des Moines Register as one of the least biased newspapers.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-des-moines-register/
You may remember that this was the paper that Trump sued for publishing ACCURATE poll information.
FOX news is rated as a questionable source.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/fox-news-bias/
In addition, I also read a LOT of books, due to the fact that
we are three miles to the closest library. In 2024, I read 74 books, and some
of those were political in nature.
If there is something strange in your neighborhood, you could
always call Ghost Busters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9C8vo0aI_I
However, if you had to get all of your information from just
ONE source, I would recommend a blog published be a college professor named
Heather Cox Richardson:
Heather Cox Richardson (born October 8, 1962) is an American historian. She is a professor
of history at Boston College,
where she teaches courses on the American Civil War,
the Reconstruction Era,
the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history
at MIT and the University
of Massachusetts Amherst.
Richardson has authored seven books on history and politics.
In 2019, Richardson started publishing Letters from an American,
a nightly newsletter that chronicles current events in the larger context of
American history. Richardson focuses on the health of American democracy. The
newsletter accrued over one million subscribers, making her, as of December
2020, the most successful individual author of a paid publication on Substack.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-5-2025
THAT is news you can trust.
I published the story below in 2013, and someone read it
yesterday:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-most-trusted-man-in-america-part-2_18.html
One of the opening paragraphs is this one:
“As
a society, we’ve become increasingly cynical over time. According to
a recent Pew Research Center study, our “believability ratings” of 13 news
organizations (national newspapers, cable news outlets, broadcast TV networks,
and NPR) has declined dramatically in the last 10 years. Significantly, there’s
a marked difference by politically party affiliation, since Republicans are
much more cynical about the news they receive than Democrats. By itself, that
may help to explain why Congress currently has the lowest approval rating it
has held in the last 40 years.”
(Congressional
approval rating in 2024 was 19% - and that is an improvement)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/207579/public-approval-rating-of-the-us-congress/
The link below will take you to the 2012 Pew Research website:
When this poll was published in 2012, it showed that believability
in news organizations had dropped from 71% in 2002 to 56% in 2012.
The poll also showed that the most reliable source was local
TV news, with credibility of 65%. Fox News was on the low end of believability,
at 49%.
Today, local TV news is not as reliable as
it used to be due to the fact that the Salem Media Group owns a large number of
outlets around the country.
Salem Media Group, Inc. (formerly Salem Communications Corporation) is an
American radio broadcaster,
internet content provider, and magazine and book publisher based in Irving, Texas, targeting audiences interested
in Christian values and
what it describes as "family-themed content and conservative
values"
Salem Media Group owns 117 radio stations in 38 markets, including 60
stations in the top 25 markets and 29 in the top 10, making it tied with Audacy for the fifth-largest radio
broadcaster.
In addition to its radio properties, the company owns:
·
Salem Radio Network,
which syndicates talk, news and music programming to approximately 2,400
affiliates.
·
Salem Media
Representatives, a radio advertising company.
·
Salem Web Network, an Internet provider of
Christian content and online streaming with over 100 Christian content and
conservative opinion websites.
·
Salem Publishing, a
publisher of Christian themed magazines.
·
Conservative
websites Townhall.com, RedState, Hot Air, and PJ Media, as well as Twitter aggregator Twitchy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_Media_Group
The other organization that owns a lot of properties is the Sinclair
Broadcast Group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb
of Cockeysville, Maryland, the company is the
second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of
stations, after Nexstar Media Group, owning or operating 193 stations across the
country in over 100 markets, covering 40% of American households. It is the
largest owner of stations affiliated with Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW.
A
2019 study in the American
Political Science Review found that "stations bought
by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and
move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction
relative to other stations operating in the same market" The
company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its
stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read
prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial
content, including warnings about purported "fake news" in mainstream
media, while Trump has tweeted support for watching Sinclair over CNN and NBC.
Pew Researched conducted another survey in 2024. This time,
the main source of political news is FOX – the same organization that was fined
$787 million for lying to its audience about the 2020 election.
https://apnews.com/article/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trial-trump-2020-0ac71f75acfacc52ea80b3e747fb0afe
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/31/americans-top-sources-of-political-news-ahead-of-the-2024-election/
Since 2012, our news sources have become increasingly fragmented,
with a lot more people getting their information from podcasts and Twitter/X.
One of the most prominent podcasters is Joseph James
Rogan, whose podcast is one of the most
influential and most watched podcasts in the world, with nearly 20,000,000 followers.
In early 2022, the video platform Rumble offered
Rogan $100 million to switch from Spotify. Variety reported
that Rogan had declined the offer.
In December 2024, Spotify confirmed that The Joe Rogan Experience was the
top podcast on its platform for a fifth consecutive year.
Rogan
has voiced support for same-sex
marriage, recreational
drug legalization, universal health care, universal basic income, gun rights, and free speech, while
opposing cancel culture and military
adventurism.
He
supported Donald Trump in 2024,
having previously endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020. Rogan
has been criticized for promoting conspiracy
theories, COVID-19 misinformation, and for hosting
guests who spread misinformation and pseudoscience.
Joe Rogan has an estimated net worth of $190,000,000 in 2023, and his net worth is expected to grow at a rate of 28%
each year, according to Forbes.
Joe Rogan’s average annual earnings are estimated at $141,000,000 a
year—this includes around $60,000,000 from his Spotify deal, $48,000,000 from
his podcast sponsors, and about $6,000,000 in YouTube earnings.
Rogan’s assets are valued at about $135,000,000 (his fifteen real
estate properties priced at about $150,000,000 and an investment portfolio of
$20,000,000).
Alex
Jones and Infowars spread a lot of misinformation in the past, but he is now
completely out of business.
On
July 30, 2022, amidst a $150 million lawsuit brought against Jones and Infowars by
Sandy Hook families, Free Speech Systems filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. On September
24, 2024, a Houston bankruptcy judge ordered the liquidation of Infowars and
Free Speech Systems at two auctions to be held later that year.[On
November 14, it was announced that Global Tetrahedron—publishers of the news satire publication The Onion—had acquired the assets of Infowars,
with plans to temporarily shut it down and relaunch it in 2025 as a satirical news website; however, the
original website was restored by Jones the next day after his lawyers alleged
irregularities in the auction, and the bankruptcy judge put the sale on hold.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infowars
The
other individual who controls a lot of information is Elon Musk, who is now the
richest man in the world.
In
2022, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion.
Reactions
to the buyout were mixed, with praise for Musk's planned reforms and vision for
the company, particularly his calls for greater free speech, but criticism over
fears of a potential rise in misinformation and disinformation, harassment, and hate speech on the
platform. Within the United States, conservatives have largely
supported the acquisition, while many liberals and former Twitter employees have voiced
concerns about Musk's intentions. Since becoming owner, Musk has faced
backlash for his handling of the company and account suspensions, including the December 2022 suspensions of ten
journalists.
In
July 2023, the Twitter service was rebranded as X.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk
If you are wondering how the worst president in our country’s history
got re-elected, you can blame Elon Musk, and the details can be found in the
article below:
https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2024/11/how-americas-worst-president-got-re.html
In addition to the $45 million that Musk spent on mid-leading
ads, he also contributed more than $250 million to Trump’s campaign. The most
recent estimate is that he spent $277 million to elect Trump and other Republican
candidates.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-277-million-trump-republican-candidates-donations/
What can you do to make yourself better informed?
First of all, I would recommend getting your information from
a variety of sources, both liberal and conservative. Like most people, I got a
lot of news from Facebook, but we DO get political news on television,
primarily from MSNBC,
One example of a conservative publication is The Daily Caller,
which was founded by Tucker Carlson in 2010.
On the liberal side, I read a LOT of newspapers, most of which
have a balanced approach to the news.
I subscribe to 6 newspapers (The Arizona Republic, the Tucson
Daily Star, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the St.
Paul Pioneer Press.)
That is in addition to my subscriptions to TIME, the Nation,
and the Atlantic.
In addition, I also read a LOT of books, due to the fact that
we are three miles to the closest library. In 2024, I read 74 books, and some
of those were political in nature.
If there is something strange in your neighborhood, you could
always call Ghost Busters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9C8vo0aI_I
However, if you had to get all of your information from just
ONE source, I would recommend a blog published be a college professor named
Heather Cox Richardson:
Heather Cox Richardson (born October 8, 1962) is an American historian. She is a professor
of history at Boston College,
where she teaches courses on the American Civil War,
the Reconstruction Era,
the American West, and the Plains Indians. She previously taught history
at MIT and the University
of Massachusetts Amherst.
Richardson has authored seven books on history and politics.
In 2019, Richardson started publishing Letters from an American,
a nightly newsletter that chronicles current events in the larger context of
American history. Richardson focuses on the health of American democracy. The
newsletter accrued over one million subscribers, making her, as of December
2020, the most successful individual author of a paid publication on Substack.
pic
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-5-2025
THAT is news you can trust.
I
