Americans’ trust in the mass media has fallen to a record low leading up to the November election, according to a new survey released by Gallup Monday.
Around 36% of those surveyed said that they have “no trust at all” in the mass media, while only 31% expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence and 33% expressed “not very much” confidence, according to the Gallup survey. The low trust in the media comes as mainstream outlets are being criticized over accusations of bias, such as with the lack of coverage of President Joe Biden’s mental acuity before his debate against former President Donald Trump.
Americans’ confidence in the mainstream media previously dropped to a previous low of 32% in 2016, which was matched in 2023, according to previous Gallup surveys.
Democrats expressed the highest amount of confidence in the mass media being able to report news “fully, accurately and fairly,” with 54% saying they trust it, according to the survey. Age gaps also made a difference in the ratings, with 74% of Democrats aged 65 and older having a fair or great amount of confidence in the media compared to just 31% of Democrats aged 18 to 29.
Republicans and independents expressed much lower confidence in the mass media compared to Democrats, with only 12% of Republicans and 27% of independents saying they have a great or fair amount of media trust, according to the survey. The U.S. legislative branch was also rated poorly, with only 34% of people saying they trusted it.
Journalists Linsey Davis and David Muir came under fire after they moderated the ABC News presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 10, as many debate viewers felt like it was unfairly rigged against Trump. Viewers expressed outrage over Trump being fact-checked multiple times by the debate moderators, while Harris was largely not challenged on her claims.
CBS News was recently criticized for editing footage of Harris’ response to a question about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in a “60 Minutes” interview from October.
While many people expressed concern over Biden’s mental acuity following his appearance in the June 27 presidential debate against Trump, several corporate news outlets tried to blame Biden’s debate performance on his having a cold.
Gallup’s poll was conducted Sept. 3 and 15 and surveyed a random sample of 1,007 adults from all U.S. states, with a ±4 percentage point margin of error.
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