Americans are skeptical in what they hear in the media. In a 2011 survey done by The Pew Research Center, negative opinions about the performance of organizations surpassed all-time highs on 9 of 12 core measures. What's even scarier is the fact that those same surveys show that news organizations are more trusted sources of information than other institutions, including government and business.
So when Richard Posner talks about the lack of accountability when it comes to public intellectuals, I think that theory can be expanded across all media outlets. Now after about 50+ failed predictions about the world coming to an end, the public has, for the most part discounted these claims. But the sad thing is that Americans don't have an outlet where they can go for unbiased truth and reporting. We have now become a nation where the facts take a backseat to obtaining ratings and votes. News stations are reporting what they are being told to report rather than presenting the facts and our Political campaigns are filled with candidates who spend the majority of their time and money attempting to challenge the credibilitiy of the other candidate. So we end up choosing the elected official who seems to be the lesser of the two evils according to how they are portrayed during the campaign.
Richard Posner's idea of an accountability scorecard seems promising in theory however finding an unbiased 3rd party to regulate the scorecard is most likely impossible. After all, would we expect the same media that we currently don't trust to provide data regarding the accuracy of what it reports? And who would provide the oversight for this scorecard, a Government who people are just as skeptical of?
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