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Trust in Media at All-Time Low

Thursday, September 18, 2014 15:10

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(Before It's News)

TND Guest Contributor: Kate Scanlon |

Most Americans don’t trust the media, according to a recent Gallup poll.

When asked how much confidence they had in the mass media to “report the news fully, accurately, and fairly,” only 40 percent of Americans responded “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”

Americans’ trust in mass media has only ever been this low once before in 2012.

Among Democrats – who according to Gallup are most likely to report a higher level of trust in the media – trust has fallen to 54 percent, their lowest rate in 14 years. At 27 percent, Republicans are only slightly more trusting than they were during their all-time low in 2012. Independents, however, reported a higher rate of trust than last year, but only by one percentage point.

Gallup notes that one of the reasons for this lack of trust may reflect Americans’ feelings regarding political bias – 44 percent of Americans believe the media is “too liberal,” while 34 percent believe it is “just about right.” Only 19 percent believe it is “too conservative,” although this number did climb six percentage points since last year.

Geoffrey Lysaught, publisher of The Daily Signal, is not surprised by the results of the poll:

“Americans are right to be skeptical. News organizations can play a critical role in the advancement of a free and prosperous society. But this requires that news media remain committed to a dogged pursuit of the truth no matter where it leads. When news organizations present spin as news or fail to cover important stories due to intimidation by political and corporate interests, the American people lose.”

The survey was conducted via telephone interviews of a random sample of 1,017 voting-age adults from all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.

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Watchdog.org is an online news organization that publishes articles by independent journalists covering state-specific and local government activity. The program began in September 2009, a project of Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to promoting new media journalism. This article is reprinted with permission.