Trust in today’s news media has edged down to 41%, with just 13% of the nation expressing “a great deal” of confidence in what radio, TV, newspapers, and news websites are reporting, according to a new national survey.
As during the 2016 presidential election, when then-candidate Donald Trump raised charges of “fake news,” the latest Gallup survey also found a wide gap among partisans over their view of the media, with Republicans dismissive of the industry and Democrats embracing it.
The raw data:
- 69% of Democrats, 15% of Republicans, 36% of independents trust media.
- 13% trust the media “a great deal,” and 28% “a fair amount.”
- Fox News is the only national news source with majority-level trust from Republicans.
- Democrats “trust” six national news sources, CNN, NPR, CBS, ABC, NBC, and national newspapers.
- Republicans “much more likely than Democrats” to perceive “bias, inaccuracy and misinformation.”
Despite the poor ratings, trust in the media is up over 2016 when the coverage of the presidential election and President Trump split the nation even more in a pattern that could play out in 2020.
