Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Journalists Fourth on LEAST TRUSTED List

Editor & Publisher is relieved that in a recent survey of least trusted professions journalists come in behind--wait for it--politicians, salespeople and lawyers.

The survey, commissioned by Sandler Training, finds journalists tied with bankers at number four in being least trusted--one place worse than mechanics.

It's not great news when you're tied with bankers (on the Obama hit list as scumbags) in public credibility. What a disastrous fall from the glory days of muckrackers to find your profession vying with professions seen at best as self-interested with power and money as the bottom line--or a bunch of liars and cheats at worst.

E & P's lighthearted take on the survey belies a problem journalists apparently have no interest in pursuing. Why are journalists so little trusted despite a constitutional presumption that they work in the people's interest?

Maybe the answer, rampant journalistic bias and lack of concern for facts, is too painful to bear. So incompetence can be added to the list of grievances against a profession which is supposedly dedicated to courageously digging out the facts.

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