Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s claim that the mainstream media can’t be trusted is bolstered by at least four polls showing that as few as 6 percent have full confidence in what the press is writing and showing on TV.
Pew, Gallup, Facebook, Rasmussen, and the American Press Institute have all recorded new lows in media trust, dismal results that bolster Trump’s charges that TV and the press are throwing “outright lies” at him, most recently charges if groping women.
“Let’s be clear on one thing, the corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism – they are a political special interest no different from a lobbyist,” Trump said Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla. “Their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy.”
The polls have not had a chance to survey reaction to Trump’s latest charges. But overall it is clear that an overwhelming percentage of Americans don’t believe much of what the media is reporting.
Corruption at it’s finest, we will speak in volumes.. Blackout all of them, they wonder why they have low ratings. #RIPJournalism pic.twitter.com/7XC5QCk9kg
— NO BETAS PLEASE (@GigiTracyXO) October 14, 2016
One example is that #RIPJournalism is trending on Twitter.
Some of the recent findings:
— Gallup’s latest survey on the issue found that just 32 percent have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the media. That is an all-time low for the national survey company.
— Pew Research Center found that only 18 percent have “a lot” of faith in what the media reports. And 87 percent of conservatives believe the media skews stories.
— The American Press Institute found that 6 percent have “a great deal of confidence” in the media.
— Just 12 percent who use Facebook, the fastest growing news source, said they trust what they are reading.
— Rasmussen said that voters distrust media fact-checkers. “Just 29 percent of all Likely U.S. Voters trust media fact-checking of candidates’ comments. Sixty-two percent believe instead that news organizations skew the facts to help candidates they support,” said the firm.
According to Gallup, “While it is clear Americans’ trust in the media has been eroding over time, the election campaign may be the reason that it has fallen so sharply this year. With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more. It is also possible that Republicans think less of the media as a result of Trump’s sharp criticisms of the press. Republicans who say they have trust in the media has plummeted to 14 percent from 32 percent a year ago. This is easily the lowest confidence among Republicans in 20 years.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
