Confidence that TV and print news media are delivering trustworthy news has plummeted to the lowest level tallied by Gallup in nearly 50 years.
The pollster said those expressing “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in print news are 16% and just 11% for TV news.
All political groups gave a thumbs down to the media, with Democrats making the biggest shift since President Joe Biden has been in office.
“Republicans’ (5%) and independents’ (12%) confidence in newspapers is the lowest on record for these party groups, while Democrats’ (35%) has been lower in the past. Democrats’ confidence in newspapers rose to the 42% to 46% range during the Donald Trump administration but fell when President Joe Biden took office,” said Gallup.
For TV, the results were worse. “This is the fourth consecutive year that confidence in TV news is below 20%. And for just the second time in the trend, a majority of Americans, 53%, now say they have very little or no confidence at all in TV news,” said Gallup.
The analysis does not give a direct reason for the general dissatisfaction with the media, though it cited another poll that showed concerns about journalistic ethics and trust.
Bias in the polarized nation might also play a role. A Pew study out last week said that left-leaning reporters are OK with bias, while news consumers are not, for example.
The results are from Gallup’s latest confidence rating of over a dozen American institutions. As low as the media sits, it isn’t the worst on the Gallup list. Sitting dead last is Congress at 7%.
In the last year, the institution taking the biggest hit was the presidency, down 15 points, a number that tracks the sinking confidence in Biden shown in other polls.
Gallup said the media has never been America’s favorite institution, but the latest numbers suggest the industry faces a difficult recovery. “Although trust in the media in the U.S. has been scarce for many years, confidence ratings for newspapers and TV news have never been as low as they are now. Taken together, these data suggest that the media has a long way to go to win back the public’s confidence.”
