The media made them villains, but despite its best efforts, police are seeing the beginnings of a rise in approval numbers the media continues to be one of the most distrusted entities in the country.

According to a recent Gallup poll, confidence in the police has risen three percent from last year to now, putting them at 51 percent. In fact, majority confidence rests in small businesses and the military.

The police are the only institution which saw American confidence in them grow (+3%) from 2020 to 2021, per Gallup, w/ the poll saying the police (51%), military (69%), & small business (70%) are the only institutions garnering majority confidence in themhttps://t.co/mtcglIGVt0 pic.twitter.com/qIqEta8q62

— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) July 14, 2021

Meanwhile, “television news” has fallen two percentage points, putting it at only 16 percent. Newspapers are only slightly higher at 21 percent, having fallen three percentage points from 24.

As Fox News noted, this isn’t a surprise as Reuters conducted their own survey that found America’s trust in its media ranks last among 46 other countries.

A Reuters survey published last month produced similar results, finding that the United States ranks last among 46 countries when it comes to public trust in the media.

“This is an extraordinary (though unsurprising) finding,” journalist Glenn Greenwald said in response to the Reuters findings. “Most amazing is that the corporate sector of the US media is failing in every respect: financially, culturally, collapsing trust. Any other industry failing like this would engage in self-critique, asking why. They never do.”

Even the Australian media has noted American mainstream media’s clear and obvious bias in favor of Democrats, calling the spectacle “appalling to watch.”

One thing this does give us insight into is how the lens through which we view this country isn’t a realistic one. While the media attempts to paint groups and professions as evil, most people see through the obvious lies and can easily identify the liars. The media would have you believe they’re trustworthy truth seekers but in the age of the internet, it’s hard to pull that kind of lie off. The information flow is still too free.

What’s more, the abuses being thrown at regular Americans by mainstream news talking heads are more and more absurd by the day, plus pushing obviously racist and divisive things like Critical Race Theory, defending rioters as cities burn behind them, and making it their quest to help impeach a president based on obvious falsehoods. Blaming law-abiding gun owners for the actions of criminals doesn’t help either.

It’s clear that mainstream media sources have become less about news and more about propaganda, and there’s not really a market for that in America. Once it’s identified as propaganda, it’s largely rejected.

They deserve the fall in trust. Meanwhile, the media’s victims deserve a rise in respect.