The irony of all ironies is that on January 27, 2010, pollsters were promoting the claim that Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country. Coming on the heels when these very same pollsters claimed that Scott Brown would defeat Martha Coakley, we now have good reason to doubt the legitimacy of their findings because the Massachusettes computer generated selection was about sending a message about health care, it was not about counting verifiable votes.

The Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network.

Thirty-seven percent said they didn’t trust Fox, also the lowest level of distrust that any of the networks recorded.

These foolish, partisan pollsters, who are trying to create the impression that Fox is a credible and trusted medium, highlight the integrity of the John Zogby poll, which indicated that Martha Coakley, the Democratic Party candidate, would narowly defeat Scott Brown in the highly contentious, Massachusetts Senate Seat election.

Did Martha Coakley lose an eletion or was she a victim of scripted polls, scripted news and scripted elections? The credibility of a seasoned pollster like John Zogby should not be doubted. On the other hand, the credibility of his critics is as reliable as Fox news.

Not surprisingly, there was a strong partisan split among those who said they trusted Fox — with 74 percent of Republicans saying they trusted the network, while only 30 percent of Democrats said they did, and you don't need a poll to believe that 0 percent of reasonable people trust Fox.

News readers gorge on media messages that fit their pre-existing views. Instead of grazing on a wide range of perspectives, they consume what they agree with. That's not news. This is news, and the fact that it should be history reflects the entire scope of the failure to report the news in an objective manner, as it unfolds.

CNN was the second-most-trusted network, getting the trust of 39 percent of those polled. Forty-one percent said they didn’t trust CNN.

Each of the three major networks was trusted by less than 40 percent of those surveyed, with NBC ranking highest at 35 percent. Forty-four percent said they did not trust NBC, which was combined with its sister cable station MSNBC.

Thirty-two percent of respondents said they trusted CBS, while 31 percent trusted ABC. Both CBS and ABC were not trusted by 46 percent of those polled.

“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said PPP President Dean Debnam in his analysis of the poll. “But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”

Obama understands. On the very day that pollsters applauded the credibility of Fox news, January 27, 2010, during the State of the Union address, Obama reached his closing stride by voicing grave concern that Americans have lost faith in the major institutions of their country.

"Each of these institutions are full of honorable men and women doing important work that helps our country prosper. But each time a CEO rewards himself for failure, or a banker puts the rest of us at risk for his own selfish gain, people’s doubts grow," he says. "Each time lobbyists game the system or politicians tear each other down instead of lifting this country up, we lose faith. The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away." (10:17 p.m.)

Recalling his campaign slogan - "change we can believe in" - Obama concedes: "I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change – or at least, that I can deliver it."

"Our administration has had some political setbacks this year, and some of them were deserved," he says. "But I wake up every day knowing that they are nothing compared to the setbacks that families all across this country have faced this year." (10:18 p.m.)

Whatever challenges the country faces, Obama says, the American spirit "lives on in the 8-year old boy in Louisiana, who just sent me his allowance and asked if I would give it to the people of Haiti. And it lives on in all the Americans who’ve dropped everything to go some place they’ve never been and pull people they’ve never known from rubble, prompting chants of 'U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A!' when another life was saved."

LAST WORD: "We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us," Obama says, closing firmly: "We don’t quit. I don’t quit. Let’s seize this moment – to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more." (10:21 p.m.)

WAKE UP AMERICA. Obama said it best in a single sentence: "WE WERE SENT HERE TO SERVE OUR CITIZENS, NOT OUR AMBITIONS." WAKE UP AMERICA.

If you don't want to listen to us, listen to somebody like Bill Moyers, he's probably the wisest man in America.

Whatever you do, do not ever trust any poll again. Trust yourself.