Go figure! A new Gallup poll was released this week that asked what profession was the most and least trusted in America. Teachers topped the list with an 84 per cent "trust" rating. CEOs of large corporations and managers of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) were at the bottom of the list with around a 20 per cent "trust" rating.
Journalists? Well members of the fourth estate ranked just above government officials and just below rich people when it comes to trust from the American public. I believe we in the media deserve a recount.
Let me be somewhat defensive. When asked on their trust of journalists, I assume most poll responders were thinking of the national talking heads on network television or some muckraking investigative reporter like Geraldo Rivera. Hey, I don't trust Geraldo either. But I sincerely hope that we small town journalists who cover school boards and city councils and Little League are not lumped in with the Dan Rathers of the world.
Interestingly, the second most trusted profession are people who run small businesses. Well guess what? A small town daily newspaper is a small business so maybe I can put myself in that respected position and not one step above lawyers and stockbrokers, which is where journalists placed in the Gallup poll.
There was a time when Walter Cronkite was around - long before Watergate - that journalists were near the top of the trusted list. They really were. But technology changed the way the media comes into our homes now and not all of those presenting the news are to be trusted. I wouldn't trust Dan Rather out of my sight and that applies to many others on the national scene. But when you lump all media folk together, we small town publishers take it on the chin.
Had this poll been taken a couple of years ago, I suspect CEOs and stockbrokers would have garnered a lot more support. But take a plunging stock market and an avalanche of corporate shenanigans and, all of a sudden, they fall out of fashion and topple on the "trusted" list.
Maybe the day will come when journalists creep back up on the favored category and replace Catholic priests who scored just above rich people and just below professional athletes. But then again - given the history of some within my profession - maybe I should be proud journalists scored higher than lawyers. Without members of the legal community, we'd lose some great lawyer jokes. That in itself would be tragic.