In an election cycle centered on President Joe Biden’s unpopularity, with Democrats trying to claim Republicans want an end to democracy, who is it that people dislike the most?
Yes, you guessed it: It’s the establishment media.
A Gallup poll released Monday found that just 34% of people believe establishment media report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.” That is just 2 points higher than the record low, which came during the 2016 election cycle. In total, 66% of people have little or no trust in newspapers, television, and radio news.
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How unpopular are the media right now? While Congress is the branch of government to which most people historically give the thumbs-down, more people trust the legislative branch (38%) than the media.
But it isn’t just distrust that is the problem. A New York Times/Siena College poll asked voters if democracy is under threat, with Democrats, Republicans, and independents all in general agreement that it is. When asked who is a “major threat” to our electoral system, 45% said former President Donald Trump, and 38% said President Joe Biden. They ranked second and third on the list.
As you may have guessed, the “mainstream media” ranked first, with 59% saying they are a major threat to democracy.
In his analysis at the Washington Post, Philip Bump mostly glossed over this result, instead tying the media’s number to Trump supporters who are angry about mail-in voting. But 59% of people are not Trump supporters, and even Republicans who didn’t name mail-in voting as a threat named the media as one. Even 38% of Democrats classified establishment media as a major threat to democracy.
The takeaway here is not, as Bump concludes, that people are divided about who the real threat to democracy is. The takeaway is that establishment media constantly top the list as the least trustworthy institution in the country and now rank as the biggest threat to democracy, according to a majority of people. This didn’t invoke any introspection from Bump, and it doesn’t invoke any introspection from any establishment media outlet that whines about “disinformation” and “fake news.”
People expect Republicans and Democrats to be partisans looking to increase their political power, but they want a media that simply report the news so they can make decisions for themselves. That is increasingly at odds with how journalists view themselves, as they think they should pick and choose what information is relayed to the public.
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While many journalists and reporters hyperventilate about democracy being in danger, there will be no serious conversations about how their open partisanship and faulty fact-checking are viewed as the biggest threat by normal people. Mainstream journalists have sold out their profession for partisan victories, and they have torched their credibility in the process.
