The NYTimes has a VERY interesting piece today on why the MSM’s reputation is in disrepair. The amazing thing is they feel it now – so maybe the disgust with MSM sloppinesss and propagandizing has begun to take its toll.

First off we need to remind the MSM is that to consistently fall for unsubstantiated anti-Bush and anti-conservative stories and trying to pass them off as ‘discoveries of fact’ is what has ruined the reputation of the media. Their primary asset is objective, quality reporting of all sides of important national issues. Their consistent bias and errors have ruined their product offering. You can only yell “wolf” so many times, present the chicken little “end of the world” predictions so often, before the lack of any of these coming true erodes all confidence in you as a source of fact and information.

But see how this simple concept escapes them, as they look to marketing PR to solve a problem of quality and diversity in their product:

SO many Americans apparently now see journalists as self-interested, careerist and unprofessional that perhaps it would make sense for media executives to call up another group of bosses who once faced fundamental questions about their product: the makers of Tylenol in the 1980’s.

…Part of the strategy was to portray the company as a victim in its own right.

Oh yes, play the victim – of your own actions?

It would be hard for the media to pitch itself as a innocent victim of its own shortcomings. And though journalists like to think of themselves as guardians of the public trust, too, opinion polls for at least two decades have shown declining faith in print and television news. Reassuring the public that these products are dependable, in turn, has proved frustratingly elusive.

You would think this is the beginning of sober sanity – a chance to see the problem for what it is. But no, the denial is deep. Here is the summation which simply doesn’t address any of the long list of problems the MSM has created for itself:

Maybe therein is a silver lining: if the people who distrust you the most are also many of your most devoted customers, perhaps survival is assured. They have accepted flaws as part of the bargain of following the news.

No thought the people will go someplace else where there is quality and balanced reporting.

So, here are the indicators the NYTimes realize exist, but cannot seem to find s0lution to (like diversifying their newsrooms).

These events come at a time when American confidence in the news media is at an all-time low. Most other major institutions in public life – while dealing with their own credibility issues – are more trusted.

In the post-Watergate 1970’s, some 25 to 30 percent of Americans reported to the Harris Poll that they had a great deal of confidence in the press, more than they had in Congress, unions or corporate America. In the 2005 poll, the press ranked only ahead of law firms, with 12 percent reporting high confidence in the media.

To steal and distort a line from Jurassac Park, the MSM can now say “only the blood sucking lawyers are on our side” of public opinion.

Another poll, in 2003 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that 66 percent of Americans see news reports as slanted, compared with 53 percent in 1985. Even more stunning to some analysts, 32 percent judged news organizations to be immoral, up from 13 percent in 1985.

Perhaps an even more dire forecast came in another Pew report, Trends 2005, which found 45 percent of Americans saying they believed little or nothing of what they read in their daily newspapers, up from 16 percent two decades ago.

Geez, maybe all these people understand something the MSM doesn’t?