A Columbus Dispatch employee bundles a stack of freshly printed newspapers in Vancouver, Washington, on April 18, 2018.
Americans’ distrust of the mass media is at an all-time high, with 60 percent of Americans in a Gallup poll distrusting the media, including 33 percent who distrust the media completely, up 5 percentage points from 2019.
According to Gallup’s annual poll conducted between August 31 and September 13, only 9 percent of Americans have “a lot of trust” in the mass media, while 31 percent say they have “a lot of trust.” However, 27 per cent said they did not trust the media very much and 33 per cent said they did not trust them at all.
Gallup first conducted the poll in 1972 and has produced a report on americans’ trust in the media almost every year since 1997. Trust in the media was between 68% and 72% in the 1970s, and though it had fallen somewhat by the late 1990s, more than half the population still trusts the media. In 2004, for the first time, trust fell to 44%. After briefly reaching 50% in 2005, Americans’ trust in the media has remained below 47%.
It is worth noting that the degree of trust in the mainstream media is highly correlated with political positions.
According to the latest report, only 10 percent of Republicans surveyed said they had “a lot” or “a lot” of trust in the media. However, 73 percent of Democrats said the same, and the partisan divide on media trust is a record 63 points.
In fact, republicans’ trust in the media has begun to decline since the presidencies of Former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, when republicans’ average trust in the media was 30 to 35 percent. Since 2016, the media has lost even more trust among Republicans, with the exception of 2018, which briefly reached 21 percent, and the rest below 15 percent.
“Americans’ confidence in the media’s fair, accurate and comprehensive coverage of the news has been declining for more than a decade and shows no signs of improving as Trust between Republicans and Democrats has moved in opposite directions,” he said. Gallup said in a statement.
“The political polarization that has gripped the country is reflected in how people of all parties view the media, and it is now the most divided in Gallup’s history.”
A whopping 33 percent said they were “totally distrustful,” up five percentage points from last year and the highest number on record. Gallup says Republicans are the main driver behind the change.
According to the survey, 58 percent of Republicans said they did not trust the media at all, an increase of 10 percentage points this year and the first time that more than half of republicans said they did.
Gallup notes that while the overall level of trust among Democrats has not changed, 12 percent of Democrats have moved from “very trusting” to “fairly trusting,” reflecting a gradual decline in trust among Democrats.
Another recent Gallup poll found that more than eight in 10 Americans believe the media must be responsible for America’s political divisions, either “very much” (47%) or “moderately” (36%). Meanwhile, almost as many said the media should be able to do “a lot” (49 percent) or “moderate” (34 percent) to bridge these differences.
Gallup says americans still believe that independent media are the key to democracy, even as they increasingly see bias in news coverage.
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