Democrats and Republicans alike tend to believe mass media’s news stories disagree with their point of view

Source: flickr.com

A study published in 2004 found that partisans feel news stories from mass media publications often have bias leaning toward the opposite political party. For instance, a Democrat may see a news story as slanting toward conservatism, which has been deemed hostile media perception.

This finding differs from assimilation bias, which is the idea that people are most likely to interpret information to support his or her own beliefs.

In order to determine why this doesn't apply to mass media, the study had individuals read either an essay or a news story regarding genetically modified food. What the study discovered was that the readers perceived a bias against them in the news story while the essay created assimilation bias.

Data from Pew Research Center

This lack of trust with mass media has been a growing trend since 1985, according to Pew Research Center data. In a survey conducted in 2011, it found 77 percent of people believe that media "tend to favor one side," which is a significant increase from the 53 percent in 1985.

So why has there been a increasing trend in a lack of trust of the media? The Washington Post attempted to answer that in 2012 leading up to the presidential election when candidates were calling the media bias.

While it may seem odd to rely on a mass media company, such as The Washington Post, to examine this, the newspaper employs a writer to actually cover the media. And in this case, the paper had its media reporter, Paul Farhi, examine media bias.

Source: Pew Research Center

Farhi found a potential list of reasons starting with the fact that the media has changed drastically since the mid-1980s. Not only are there just far more media outlets with the Internet, but there are also more "overtly partisan outlets," such as the Huffington Post or Drudge.

It's the classic case of one bad apple ruining the bunch. People see specifically biased media outlets and think it applies to all mass media outlets.

Plus, Pew Research found that the first outlets that come to mind when they asked people to think of a "news organization" were CNN and Fox News (63 percent). So it could be that those two major news outlets are giving the rest of mass media a bad name if people don't agree with their coverage.

Pew Research Center data shows readers trust their favorite news organizations but not the rest

While trust is bad for mass media, it isn't quite as bad among individuals' most-read news organizations. The Pew Research survey found that just 25 percent of people surveyed believed that news organizations in general get the facts straight. That number jumps up drastically to 62 percent when people answer the same question about sources they turn to most.

Mark Jurkowitz, who was a former press critic and ombudsman told Fahri why he believes there is much more trust in the most-read news sources of the surveyed group.

“If you watch the Channel 2 newscast night after night, you trust the people on the air,” Jurkowitz said. “The mere fact that you’re a habituated user makes you think better of them.”

Source: Gallup

And to further this, Fahri makes the argument that low levels of trust is actually common across a variety of institutions. For example, Gallup released a poll over the summer documenting the level of confidence for a number of U.S. institutions.

Newspapers were down 8 percent from the historical average, garnering confidence from 24 percent of Americans. But despite that low number, it was still 16 percent more confidence than Congress received.

Other key groups didn't fare well either. The criminal justice system received confidence from 23 percent. The U.S. Supreme Court garnered confidence from 32 percent. And the president got confidence from 33 percent of Americans.

In fact, only the police, the military and small businesses had more than 50 percent confidence from those polled.

Perceived bias comes from readers only remembering the bad that the media does

Stories that go viral and are shared all over the Internet don't tend to be the well-sourced, well-reported ones. Instead, it's the stories where the media made an error and then people share it make that news organization look bad.

Source: flickr.com

Or other times, media simply gives itself a bad rap by making the news. Take former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams for example. Williams was investigated and ultimately found that he had been embellishing his stories, surely losing the trust from nearly all viewers. But this loss of trust extended beyond Williams and to NBC, which was broadcasting his embellishments.

This surely isn't the only reason why individuals have lost trust in news organizations, but it is stories like Williams' that contribute to it. As a reporter myself, I take pride in reporting both sides of a story and telling it as fairly as I possibly can.

And I have worked for a professional news organization — The Baltimore Sun — so I've seen other professional journalists work hard to do the same thing. So it upsets me when I see a majority of Americans perceiving there to be bias in stories and thus not trusting news outlets.

I think the growing number of mass media organizations such as Buzzfeed have given journalism and news outlets a bad name. It's part of the reason why there is a hostile media perception in our society.