Feel free to believe this column or not, but the public’s view of media accuracy is now at an all time low.

That's the word as told by a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press - How little respect Americans have for mainstream newspapers and television news.

Pulling from a nationwide sample of 1,506 adults, 18 years of age or older, 1,129 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 377 were contacted on a cell phone, including 114 who had no landline telephone, Pew's researchers found that only 29 percent say news organizations "generally get the facts straight."

A whopping 63 percent insist news stories are "often inaccurate." In 1985, Pew’s first survey said only 34 percent of news stories were often inaccurate. Two years ago, 53 percent expressed concern.

Ouch.

Why is this?

In a nation such as ours, if people don't believe they have the facts, how can they draw conclusions on everything from re-tooling health care to deciding if more soldiers are needed in Afghanistan?

In an effort to stay afloat in a recession, news organizations have become more opinionated. Fox News gives the conservative point of view; MSNBC slants to the left; CNN tries to straddle the middle. In only a few minutes a night, networks try to provide the big news of the day but anger many by what they leave out.

Some of the animosity toward traditional media is their arrogance, not admitting or correcting mistakes quickly. Similarly, the proportion saying news organizations “try to cover up their mistakes” has reached a high of 70 percent, up from 63 percent two years ago. In 1985, only 53 percent said news organizations tried to cover up their mistakes.

There has been a comparable shift in views of the press’s independence. Nearly 75 percent now say news organizations are influenced by powerful people and organizations compared with 20 percent who say they are independent. In 1985, by a far smaller margin, more said that news organizations were influenced by the powerful than said they were pretty independent - 53 percent to 37 percent

Another reason for distrust of the news media is virulent political polarization. More people want their own views directly mirrored in the media they see and read. Many are impatient and even angry with other views.

But most people are so bogged down with finances, jobs, family duties, that they have insufficient time, inclination or money to pursue a variety of news outlets. Instead of reading a daily newspaper, watching the evening news, listening to the radio and checking cable channels, blogs and web sites, they catch the news however they can on the fly and complain loudly if it is not to their liking.

Liberals and conservatives alike believe the news they get is biased, incomplete or erroneous. There is even a belief that news organizations are "too critical" of America by exposing things that do not reflect the best face of the country.

On the bright side, Americans overwhelmingly agree that it would be "an important loss" and would seriously remiss if major news sources disappeared.

Fortunately for me, the report continues to state, “Yet despite declines in newspaper readership over the last several years, about four-in-ten (41 percent) people turn to newspapers for news about issues and events in their local area, more than twice the number that turn to the internet for local news (17 percent).”

Let’s put things in perspective. In 1985 the "news media" was made up of predominantly of trained journalists. Today, for many people the term includes sloppy bloggers with no journalism training and web publishers with motivations that have everything to do with political agendas and little to do with truth. Indeed, under that broad definition, the "news media" is less accurate than ever.

So the Pew survey begs the question: Do people find their favored media outlets inaccurate, or do the highly negative survey responses tend to refer to other media? With the Internet, information you agree with is easier to find than ever. If you lean left, there are several mainstream media orgs and countless "underground" web sites tailored to your views, with sometimes accurate and often sensationalized — but always highly selected — stories just for you. Likewise if you lean right.

It is the news consumers' responsibility to question news stories that are too broadly drawn and weakly sourced, and especially to recognize the difference between news and entertainment and opinion masquerading as news.

Armand Nardi is the publisher of the Gainesville Daily Register. He can be contacted at: anardi@ntin.net.