American public still hatin’ on the press

Sigh. For a change, the American public is mad at the press. According to the most recent study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Americans think the news media is too critical of America, with 47 percent saying the media protects democracy and 33 percent saying it hurts it.

Which sounds bad until you consider that “the media is still doing a better job winning over the public than President Bush the Supreme Court, Congress or other public institutions.”

Well, that’s encouraging, if only because it means that the American public no longer wants the government to censor the media. Yeah, a few Downing Street memos and Gitmo debacles’ll do that.

Intrepid data-crunching cousin at TVNewser has the stats on reporters vs. commentators and where respondents get their news. CNN ranks number one; Jon Klein does little happy-dance; people who actually look at these numbers raise an eyebrow and wonder inwardly if the 1,464 people surveyed was really such a representative sample.

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