Americans’ confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, fairly and accurately is at its lowest point since 2016, the polling firm Gallup has found.
The results mark just the second time since the poll started in 1972 that the share of Americans who have no confidence at all in the media tops the percentage with a great deal or fair amount of trust, Gallup said.
In the poll conducted Sept. 1 to Sept. 23, just 32% of Americans said they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way. That ties Gallup’s lowest historical reading, reached in 2016.
The figure fell slightly from 34% in 2022 and 36% in 2021, Gallup said. By contrast, in the 1970s, trust ranged from 68% to 72%. While it declined in the 1990s, a majority still trusted the news until 2004, when it hit 44%.
Another 29% of U.S. adults have “not very much” trust, while a record-high 39% register “none at all.” That’s 12 points higher than the portion with no trust at all recorded in 2016, “making the current assessment of the media the grimmest in Gallup’s history,” the firm said.
The poll interviewed 1,000 adults 18 and older from across the country, using random dialing to both land lines and cellphones.
Significantly, the poll found that Democrats’ confidence in the mass media has fallen sharply, down about 12 points in the past year to 58%. That compares with 11% among Republicans and 29% among independents.
“Still, a majority of Democrats but few Republicans continue to have confidence in the mass media,” Gallup said in a statement. “Republicans’ low confidence in the media has little room to worsen, but Democrats’ could still deteriorate and bring the overall national confidence reading down further.
The company noted that the declines come as trust in each of the three branches of the federal government is also low.
