You don’t have to take our word for it, but studies show that people in the United States don’t trust the media.
“A great deal” of political bias skews the news, 49% believe, according to a massive poll of 20,000 people in a study by the Knight Foundation. Another 37% say there’s a “fair amount.” That leaves only 14% of the country who think the media is more or less unbiased. And that bugs people more every year. In 2017, about two-thirds said media bias was a major problem. Now, it’s up to three-fourths.
This skepticism and pessimism pervade the Knight Foundation’s study.
The press, of course, make mistakes all the time. Everyone does. In the Trump era, those errors seem to be more frequent. One innocent (though damning) explanation is that reporters and editors are less cautious than they used to be, either because of more constant deadlines or because of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The public has a different explanation. More than 80% believe bias is intentional, with 28% believing that reporters just make up facts.
Democrats are the exception to the rule. While a majority of independents and Republicans have a very unfavorable or somewhat unfavorable view of the media, only 22% of Democrats do.
A big problem for news consumers: the flood of news. Three-fifths of people say the sheer quantity of media available actually makes it harder to follow the news.
Meanwhile, local news (which, historically, the American public has trusted the most) is drying up, and the cable networks are finding little value in showing both sides. Young reporters are hounding out of the newsroom bosses who rub them the wrong way, and newspaper owners years ago cleared out all the mid-level editors.
The result is a media that responds to ideology rather than serving the public interest — and a public that can tell.
