Beginning of the End for the Corporate Press?

Beginning of the End for the Corporate Press?
Killing the Messenger

By Anthony DiMaggio

The Pew Center for public opinion research has released its September study of public trust in media, and the picture isn’t very pretty. Americans are pessimistic when it comes to the quality of reporting in the corporate press. This should hardly be a surprise considering the extent to which reporting on Iraq and Iran in recent years propagandistically and falsely reported both countries as pursuing and perhaps even possessing nuclear weapons, and the way that reporters muddy the waters of rational debate on important domestic issues such as health care, the economy, the 2008 election, and so on. Most Americans are also weary of the titillating mass media coverage of celebrity gossip, finding these stories to be a diversion from more relevant political issues.