American’s trust in the media is at all-time lows, which is surprising only to WWII Japanese soldiers only now emerging from remote, Pacific-island caves. According to Gallup, in the 1970s, about 66% of Americans trusted the media to report the news fully, fairly and accurately. By 1997, that figure dropped to 53%. Circa 2025, only 31% trust the media “a great deal or a fair amount.” 

“A fair amount?”  I suspect that was Gallup’s attempt to give the media more credit than it deserves. Even so, 33% say they don’t trust the media “very much,” and 35% don’t trust the media at all. I further suspect that Gallup’s wishy-washy choices give the media undue credit, but even so, 71% of Americans have little or no trust in the media, which is not as bad for the media as they deserve.

Donald Trump certainly agrees. He’s negotiated towering settlements from the media for their blatant bias.

The Associated Press is certainly one of the main drivers of American rejection of the media. The AP is a “wire service,” so-called because once upon a time its feed was sent out via hard wire. Local news organizations can’t pay to send reporters and cameramen around the world, so they pay a subscription fee to the AP, which has stringers—reporters and cameramen—around the world paid on a story-by-story basis. This allows widespread access to news that would otherwise be unavailable, but there are major problems. If the AP refuses to report a story, its subscribers will never know. And if the AP gets it wrong, so do its subscribers, and so does anyone relying on the AP to report the news fully, fairly and accurately.

The AP has been doing that far less frequently these days, as Powerline reports:

A case in point is this story on agriculture: “To get that perfect ear of corn, weather has to cooperate. But climate change is making it dicier.”

Across major corn-growing states, climate change is fueling conditions that make watching the corn grow a nail-biter for farmers. Factors like consistently high summer overnight temperatures, droughts and heavier-than-usual rains at the wrong time…

Got that? Global warming causes both droughts and too much rainfall–take your pick. In fact, neither droughts nor floods have increased.

…can all disrupt the plants’ pollination — making each full ear of corn less of a guarantee and more of a gamble.

Oh no! We all know Climate Change is the all-purpose, non-falsifiable narrative. No hurricanes? Climate Change. Hurricanes? Climate Change. Drought? Climate Change. Floods? Climate Change.  Cold temps in winter?  Climate Change. Hot temps in summer? Climate Change. Tuesday? Climate Change. Trump? Climate Change. No sex? Climate Change. No global warming? Climate change.

According to the AP, Climate Change must be all but obliterating this year’s corn crop.  We’re all going to starve and worst of all, Ethanol production will grind to a halt! Yeah, not so much:

Graphic: USDA Graph, Public Domain

2025 has been an all-time high in American corn production. But wait a minute: you’re cherry-picking statistics. That graph only goes back to 2016! OK then:

Graphic: Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, Public Domain

Oh.

Per-acre yield has more than tripled since 1961, and the last 15 years have seen the highest yields ever. So, if “climate change” has affected corn yields, the impact apparently has been positive.

The Associated Press was once a respected news organization, but now its reporters and editors are hacks who promote liberal narratives, not facts.

The AP certainly has hacks, but editors? Who could tell?

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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.