Americans’ distrust of the mass media is at an all-time high, with as many as 60 percent of the U.S. public distrusting the media in a Gallup survey, including 33 percent who do not trust the media at all, 5 percentage points higher than in 2019.
According to Gallup’s annual survey conducted between Aug. 31 and Sept. 13, only 9 percent of Americans trust the mass media “a lot” and 31 percent “a lot. However, 27 percent said they “don’t trust” the media very much, and 33 percent “don’t trust” it at all.
Gallup first conducted this poll in 1972 and has reported on the trust of the American public in the media almost every year since 1997. Trust levels ranged from 68% to 72% in the 1970s, and although they declined in the late 1990s, more than half of the public still trusts the media. In 2004, trust fell to 44% for the first time, although it briefly reached 50% in 2005, and since then, Americans have not trusted the media above 47%.
Notably, the level of trust in the mainstream media is highly correlated with political stance.
The latest report notes that only 10 percent of Republicans surveyed said they trust the media “a lot” or “quite a bit. However, 73 percent of Democrats who responded the same way, a record 63 percentage points of partisan disagreement on trust in the media.
In fact, since the term of former President George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the level of Republican trust in the media has begun to decline, when the average level of Republican trust in the media was 30% to 35%. Since 2016, the media has lost Republicans’ trust even further, falling below 15 percent except in 2018, when trust levels, briefly, reached 21 percent.
“Americans’ confidence in the media to report the news fairly, accurately and comprehensively has remained low for more than a decade and shows no sign of improving as trust levels for Republicans and Democrats move in opposite directions.” Gallup said in a statement.
“The political polarization that has gripped the nation is reflected in the way people of different parties view the media, which is now the most divisive in Gallup’s history.”
Those who have “no confidence at all” are at 33 percent, up five points from last year and the highest number on record. Gallup said Republicans are the main driving force behind the change.
According to the survey, 58 percent of Republicans said they do not trust the media at all, a figure that grew by 10 percentage points this year and the first time ever that more than half of Republicans do not trust the media at all.
Gallup noted 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 the gradual decline in trust among Democrats.
Another recent Gallup poll found that more than eight in 10 Americans believe the media must be held accountable for America’s political divisions, either to a “great extent” (47%) or to a “moderate extent” (36%). At the same time, nearly as many say the media should be able to do a “great deal” (49 percent) or “moderate” (34 percent) to bridge these divisions.
Gallup said that while Americans are increasingly seeing bias in news coverage, they still believe independent media are the key to democracy.
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