Public Trust in Mainstream Media Falls to New Low
Nine months into President Donald Trump’s second administration, the American public’s trust in mainstream media has cratered to an all-time record low. According to a Gallup poll published Thursday, a mere 28% of Americans say that they trust mainstream media a “great deal” or a “fair amount” to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly, down from 31% last year. Meanwhile, 36% of Americans say that they have little trust in the media and 34% say that they have no trust in the media at all, totaling 70% who simply do not trust mainstream media outlets.
Age and political affiliation play a role in predicting trust in mainstream media, according to Gallup. Only 8% of Republicans say that they trust mainstream media, the first time that Gallup has recorded single digits in it’s 53 years of studying the question, and 62% of Republicans say that they don’t trust mainstream media at all. Among Independent voters, 27% report trusting mainstream media, 38% say that they have very little trust, and 32% report no trust at all. Democrats are the only political group with a majority (51%) expressing trust in mainstream media. Only 9% of Democrats say that they don’t trust mainstream media at all.
When examined by age, those aged 65 or older have the highest rate of trust in mainstream media at 43%, while only 28% of those aged between 50 and 64 and those aged between 18 and 29 express trust in media. Those aged between 30 and 49 reported the lowest level of trust in media at only 23%. Republicans of all age groups have the lowest rate of trust in mainstream media: 12% among those aged 18 to 29, 6% among those aged 30 to 49, 8% among those aged 50 to 64, and 17% among those aged 65 or older.
Among Independent voters aged 18 to 29, trust in mainstream media stands at 29%, at 24% among Independent voters aged 30 to 49, at 23% among Independent voters aged 50 to 64, and at 42% among Independent voters aged 65 or older. Democrats aged 18 to 29 trust mainstream media at a rate of 38%, at a rate of 42% among Democrats aged 30 to 49, at a rate of 59% among Democrats aged 50 to 64, and at a rate of 69% among Democrats aged 65 or older.
“Confidence in the mass media is historically low, with fewer than three in 10 Americans now placing trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, fairly and accurately,” Gallup senior editor Megan Brenan wrote of the statistics. “With confidence fractured along partisan and generational lines, the challenge for news organizations is not only to deliver fair and accurate reporting but also to regain credibility across an increasingly polarized and skeptical public.”
Tim Graham, an executive editor with the Media Research Center’s (MRC’s) NewsBusters, said in comment to The Washington Stand, “Trust in the media has collapsed because everyone has figured out the media now exist to elect Democrats and destroy Donald Trump.” He continued, “They’ve sought not merely to defeat him politically — they’ve sought to bankrupt him and put him in jail for the rest of his life. Their toxic ardor against Trump has led most people to see them for the partisans they are.”
“Everyone knows the media play on the team of the Democrats, which is why Democrats trust them most. But even there, Democrat numbers are lower, because they’re apparently not pro-Democrat enough, just as many Democrats think their national leaders aren’t doing enough to destroy Trump,” Graham posited. “Part of the decline in trust isn’t just the bias. It’s that the press has undercut the credibility of all the other institutions in society, leading to an overarching cynicism that comes back to bite them,” he observed. “But their arrogance about how they are saving democracy daily clearly suggests cynicism is in order.”
According to a June 26 report from the MRC, mainstream media outlets CNN, MSNBC, and PBS used variations of the label “far right” over 1,200 times between Trump’s inauguration and June 21, compared to only 86 mentions of the “far left.” Additionally, despite days-long riots targeting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and multiple assassination attempts against Trump the previous year, mainstream media outlets were 5.5 times more likely to associate political violence with the “far right” than the “far left.”
AUTHOR
S.A. McCarthy
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
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