Americans’ distrust in the media is at a record high, as for the first time ever, the percentage of Americans with no trust at all in the media is higher than the percentage of those with a great deal or fair amount combined, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Americans’ trust in the mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly”It is nearly unchanged at 34% from last year, only two points lower than the Recorded lowest Gallup ever2016 during the presidential election.
Only 7% of American adults trust newspapers, radio and TV news with a lot of confidence, while 27% do a good deal. Of those surveyed, 28% don’t have much confidence in media, while 38% have none at all.
Americans’ trust in media remains divided along party lines, with 70% of Democrats and 14% of Republicans saying they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence. Since 2001, the gap between the two parties has been at least double digits.
Gallup says that even though the margin increased 10 percentage points in 2020 it is still the third consecutive year of a majority vote for Republicans distrusting mainstream media organizations. And at 27%, independents’ confidence is at the lowest point in the trend. This is the first time it has fallen below 30 percent.
This current amount of distrust in the media follows Gallup’s historically low confidence in both TV news and newspapers in June as well as a new record low in December’s annual rating of television reporters’ honesty and ethics.
The poll was conducted between Sept. 1 and Sept. 16 among 812 adults. There was a margin for error of 4 percentage points.
