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Gallup: People With No Trust in News Media Hits Record

Gallup: People With No Trust in News Media Hits Record
(Dreamstime)

By    |   Thursday, 31 December 2020 04:05 PM EST

Trust in news reporting has sunk to the second-lowest level in a half century, with 60% of the American public expressing little or no trust in the news media, least of all Republicans, according to an annual survey by Gallup.

Only 9% have a ''great deal'' of trust while 31% have a ''fair amount,'' according to the Gallup poll, which first asked the question in 1972 and has been querying the public annually since 1997. 

When asked to quantify how much ''trust and confidence'' they had in mass media, 33% had ''none at all,'' a record in the 48 years of the poll and four points higher than the previous low-water mark in 2017. Another 27% had ''not very much.''

Republicans were the least trustful of news media, with only 10% expressing a great deal or fair amount, 5% lower than last year, and independents at 36%, the same as last year.

However, 73% of Democrats expressed a great deal or fair amount of trust, just 3% off their previous high in 2018.

Republican trust in news reporting has dropped from 32% in 2015, while independents have averaged below 40% for the past 11 years. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans say they have no trust at all in news reporting, a 10% jump from last year. Likewise, 35% of independents have no trust, a 5% increase from last year.

The poll dovetails with Gallup’s survey released in August that 83% of Americans saw a ''great deal'' or ''fair amount'' of political bias in news reporting.

The latest weighted random telephone survey regarding trust queried 1,019 adults 18 and older, conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 13 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4%.

''The political polarization that grips the country is reflected in partisans' views of the media, which are now the most divergent in Gallup's history,'' the company wrote. ''Recent Gallup/Knight Foundation polling has shown that although Americans increasingly see bias in news coverage, they nonetheless believe that an independent media is key to democracy.''

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Trust in news reporting has sunk to the second-lowest level in a half century, with 60% of the American public expressing little or no trust in the news media, least of all Republicans, according to an annual survey by Gallup....
gallup, media, trust, record, survey
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2020-05-31
Thursday, 31 December 2020 04:05 PM
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