What do you believe in?
`Glen’ Falls gets national TV exposure - again
The Front Page
Morning Briefing
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
By Ken Tingley
Gallup has been doing polls since the 1970s about our “confidence in institutions.”
This is how it works: A pollster from the Gallup organization will cold call someone and ask them to take a poll. If they agree, the pollster reads from a script:
Now I am going to read you a list of institutions in American society. Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one -- a great deal, quite a lot, some or very little?
The pollster then goes through a list of institutions: Church, Supreme Court, Congress, organized labor, big business, public schools, newspapers, military, presidency, medical system, banks, TV news, police, criminal justice, small business and internet news.
Of all those institutions only four topped or came close to 50 percent in 2020 - the military, small businesses, the medical system and the police. I combined the totals for “a great deal” and “quite a lot” to get that figure.
Three out of four had confidence in the military and small businesses while just over half in the medical system and just under half in the police.
What is mind boggling to me is that less than half of those surveyed had confidence in their church, the Supreme Court, Congress (OK that makes sense), organized labor, public schools, newspapers, the presidency, banks, TV news, the criminal justice system and internet news.
Only 42 percent had confidence in churches, down from 65 percent in 1973.
Newspapers had dropped from 35 percent when I started my career to 24 percent in 2020. And they run corrections when they make a mistake.
Congress deservedly came in at 13 percent while internet news was at 16 percent.
Generally speaking, our confidence factor has gone down every year since the 1970s. It may explain a lot about our politics if the average citizen has no confidence in, well, anything.
So my question is what do we believe in?
Or are we just the most cynical poll takers in the world.
Don’t forget the `s’
Jim Nantz, the CBS play-by-play man doing the Syracuse basketball game Sunday evening, had done his homework, and after Joe Girard III hit a couple of 3-pointers in the first half, he recited his 50-point scoring average his junior year in high school and his 48-point average his senior year as he described the sophomore from “Glen” Falls, New York.
It had happened again.
One of the things you learn quickly when you move to Glens Falls is that really annoys people from here when someone leaves off the “s.”
After saying “Glen” Falls, N.Y., Nantz finally corrected himself and said “Glens” Falls, N.Y. I’m wondering who complained.
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