Trusting the press

Jay Rosen was the author of the article about the role of journalists in a political campaign, which I linked to in the previous entry. He posted the article on his blog, and there are many interesting comments below it. Here's one from Dan McWiggins that speaks to an experience of cognitive dissonance that will be familiar to many readers of the Tulsa Whirled:

I once received a really stunning insight into press coverage. Someone who had suffered a particularly unpleasant bout of media exposure asked me to think about the following question: How many times had I, watching the press deal with a subject I was intimately familiar with, seen them come even close to getting the story right?

My response, after some thought, was "almost never." The fellow I was talking to then asked me why I would think they would do much better on any other topic. It was a very eye-opening moment for me, especially when I considered that most reporters are seriously left-leaning political partisans and, where politics are concerned, large amounts of power and money are at stake.

I've never trusted the press since. Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass and Andrew Gilligan just drove the point further home.