Americans’ trust in the U.S. news media is at its lowest point in half a century, according to a new Gallup poll finding that just 31% generally trust the media and 69% do not.
(LifeSiteNews) -- Americans’ trust in the U.S. news media is at its lowest point in half a century, according to a new poll from Gallup.
Gallup’s survey asked respondents, “How much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media – such as newspapers, TV and radio – when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly?” Just 31 percent answered with a “great deal” or “fair amount,” the lowest result since Gallup started asking in 1972 (and found trust at 68 percent).
By contrast, 33 percent said they had “not very much” trust for the press, and 36 percent had “none at all,” for a combined total of 69 percent distrust.
Trust in mainstream media has been on a steady decline since the 1970 after hitting an all-time high of 72 percent in 1976 (two years after investigative journalism into the Watergate scandal led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon). Trust crept back up modestly a few times since the 1990s, but with the exception of a 13-point spike from 2016 to 2018 (to a high of 45 percent), the improvements were not substantial.
As expected, trust falls sharply along partisan lines, with 59 percent of Republicans having “none at all” while just 6 percent of Democrats say the same, although 42 percent of independents share that distrust.
Conservatives and Republicans have long accused the mainstream media of having a liberal bias, but especially in the past decade it has taken a hit for numerous stories that were not merely slanted but factually false and actively suppressed, such as presidential son Hunter Biden’s discarded computer being dismissed as “Russian disinformation,” false claims that South Carolina’s pro-life laws prevented women from receiving life-saving emergency care, suppression of every major dissenting opinion about COVID-19 as “medical misinformation,” and a widespread cover-up of elderly former President Joe Biden’s health.
Several members of the mainstream media appear to be making superficial gestures at image rehabilitation, but so far without success.
CNN host Jake Tapper announced this week that he has co-authored a book about “President Biden's Decline (and) Its Cover-Up,” only to receive widespread criticism of his own complicity in the deception while Biden was still a candidate. MSNBC recently dropped far-left host Joy Behar from its primetime lineup but is replacing her with a panel likely to provide similar commentary. A handful of newspapers declined to endorse Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris, including The Washington Post, whose owner Jeff Bezos angered liberal readers yet again this week by announcing greater representation for “personal liberties and free markets” on the newspaper's editorial page.
Remaining MSNBC host and former Biden administration press secretary Jen Psaki has urged Democrats to double-down on left-wing stances such as LGBT activism despite evidence that President Donald Trump’s victory was a repudiation of such priorities, which in turn suggests a connection to MSNBC’s ratings.
Exit polling by the pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third-biggest reason why voters overall chose not to vote for her and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted for Trump instead.
