The police is the only institution that saw American confidence grow this year, while public confidence in the media is sinking, a new poll found.
The Gallup survey of confidence in major U.S. institutions released Wednesday, showed that confidence in the police rose from 48% in 2020 to 51% in 2021— the only public institution that experienced a rise.
The military, the highest-ranked institution in the survey, had a 69% confidence level compared with 72% in 2020.
Television news, meanwhile, had an 18% confidence rate in 2020 and 16% in 2021; newspapers had 24% confidence in 2020 and 21% in 2021.
People attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas told Fox News they weren’t surprised about the plummeting trust in the media.
"They force their opinion, they don't give us the news, you know, like Walter Cronkite," said Larry Reynolds of Killeen, Texas.
"There's a lot of damage done," he added. "I mean, this is kind of like the old saying about lawyers, ‘How do you know a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving.’ That's, as far as I'm concerned, the mainstream media."
Beth Finito of Boston decried the media "spin."
"It's really sad because years ago, when we used to watch the news, or you catch the news you just assume that they're telling you the truth and the facts," she told Fox News.
Congress or big business has ranked at the bottom of the list since 2007; in 2021, Congress had a 12% confidence level and big business had an 18% confidence level.
Gallup reported that majorities of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, as well as Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents, express confidence in the military and small business. Both party groups express similarly low confidence in the Supreme Court, big business, banks, and the criminal justice system.
On other matters, the partisan divide is wide, Gallup reported.
Republicans have far more confidence than Democrats in the police and the church. Democrats' confidence in eight other institutions outpaces Republicans' by double digits.
The June 1-July 5 survey of 1,381 adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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