Americans’ confidence in the mass media has edged down to a new low, with just 28% expressing a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly. This is down from 31% last year and 40% five years ago.
Meanwhile, seven in 10 U.S. adults now say they have “not very much” confidence (36%) or “none at all” (34%).
When Gallup began measuring trust in the news media in the 1970s, between 68% and 72% of Americans expressed confidence in reporting. However, by the next reading in 1997, public confidence had fallen to 53%. Media trust remained just above 50% until it dropped to 44% in 2004, and it has not risen to the majority level since. The highest reading in the past decade was 45% in 2018, which came just two years after confidence had collapsed amid the divisive 2016 presidential campaign.
The latest 28% confidence reading, from a Sept. 2-16 poll, marks the first time the measure has fallen below 30%.
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ThePaper
Yeah, trust in media has been falling for over a decade now. Why? The internet. Or, the way the internet is being used by politicians, tech companies, and the media. These numbers reflect that the people can see what is going on. Newspapers have been chasing the Golden Goose of internet riches for well over 20 years now and have absolutely nothing to show for it. Especially smaller publications local newspapers who have no way whatsoever to scale up in the size needed to continue operations. That's why they're continuing to go out of business. The question should be two-fold. How much trust to you have in your local newspaper? How much trust do you have in the news you read online? That would tell all. It's newspapers own fault for continually being duped by tech companies and swayed to abandon their product that works, and push towards online that doesn't work. But, even publications like E&P continue to push stories about missing out on technology, not keeping up with technology, how to compete with Tiktok (LOL), and how important using A.I. will be. If news organizations en-masse stood up and said "This needs to stop, it is completely destroying news," then there would be a chance. But continually pushing towards the internet tells their own readers that's where they want them to be. When it comes to News and the Internet ... Never the two should have met.
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TomBelden
This type of report, even though it's by usually reliable Gallup, fails to define what "media" means to each age group. To a 65-year-old it mostly means newspapers and traditional network TV news. That is I (or more commonly, me). What media do 18-29-year-olds consume? How many of the latter group have read a newspaper in the last week, month, year or ever? Is their media only a phone? Likely. And the headline figures in such press releases (and I know this isn't a news story) doesn't reflect that people with strong political affiliation vary significantly: Republicans, according to other surveys, get 80 percent of their news from Fox News. How often are they told, by politicians and Fox talking heads, not to trust the "mainstream media?" I find little value here in the topline finding without context.
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