Who do you trust?

What an understatement.

Study: More Than 60% Don't Trust Campaign Coverage

It's from a Harvard study.

Key among the findings according to E&P:
• 64% of those polled do not trust press coverage of the presidential campaign.
• 88% believe that campaign coverage focuses on trivial issues.
• 84% believe that media coverage has too much influence on American voting choices.
• 92% say it is important that the news media provide information on candidates’ specific policy plans, but 61% say the media does not provide enough coverage of policy plans.
• 89% say it is important to hear about candidates’ personal values and ethics, but 43% say there is not enough coverage of personal values and ethics.

Instead, those surveyed claimed they were getting "exactly the type of campaign coverage that they want the least," the report found.

Seventy percent of those polled said coverage of negative ads was not important and 65% said the media provided too much coverage of them; 67% say that coverage of “gotcha” moments — candidates’ embarrassing incidents and mistakes — was not important and 68% say there was too much coverage of those moments.

Unlike Editor & Publisher, I know how to link.

What E&P missed because Greg Mitchell, the editor of E&P is still having those anti-war flashbacks to the 60s.

The national leadership index asks the question, "How much confidence do you have in the leadership of the following sectors?" (Pg 3)
1 = None at all 4 = Great deal

Military = 3.15
Medical = 3.02
Supreme Court = 2.90
The bottom? The press = 2.26 (lower than the White House)

Top key findings the study highlighted?
•The only sectors of leadership in which Americans have more than a moderate amount of confidence are military and medical leadership
• For the third year in a row, military leadership inspires the most confidence and leadership in the press the least confidence

SECTION 2 , titled, "Memo to the Press" (pg 4)

Leaders in the press have inspired less confidence than leaders in any other sector during each of the three years of the National Leadership Index (2005-2007). Given the central role of the news media in covering presidential politics, Americans were asked how they felt about media coverage of the 2008 campaign.

64% did not trust
34% trust

Methodology
A total of 1,207 respondents were interviewed.
The interviews were conducted from September 4 –17, 2007. Calls were made weeknights
from 5:30 p.m.–9:00 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from noon–6:00 p.m. in each local
time zone. The response rate was 23%.

In other words, 77% of the people hung up on them or declined to participate.

How come polls never ask the really important question, "Do you trust polls?" Perhaps because they're afraid of the answer. The refusal rate answers the question.