Quote:Here, for a change, is a Friday bad-news dump for our country’s news media: Americans don’t believe you anymore. In fact, they’re pretty sure you knowingly publish inaccurate news, distort it and even make stuff up to suit your political bias and agenda.

And if you distribute the news on social media, they believe you even less.

These results from recent public surveys are not just bad news for the news business, struggling through a now-chronic financial crisis. They’re bad news for our form of democracy, which requires informed participation by voters relying on accurate news to cast their ballots. Misinformation can easily result in mistaken choices, or none at all.[..]

Now, come the Knight Foundation and Gallup Polls dissecting Americans’ thoughts about media. In general, Americans overall estimate that of the news they’re exposed to via radio, TV and print, nearly two-thirds of it is biased (62 percent).

They believe that nearly half the news they see is inaccurate (44 percent). And they’re sure that more than a third of the news moving through those media conduits is misinformation, that is, wrong or fake but distributed as if true.

They also believe that 64 percent of news carried by social media is inaccurate. And — maybe you’ve felt this way too — more than 80 percent of adult Americans report feeling angry or bothered by detecting such false reports. They believe that 65 percent of such news is misinformation and a whopping 80 percent is biased.