Americans Trust in the Media Hits a 50-Year Low
Gallup has released its latest poll on Americans trust in the media and the news isn’t good for the legacy media companies.
In 1972 when the poll began 68 percent of respondents said they trusted the media a great deal of fair amount versus 30 percent not very much or none at all. Those numbers trended upward reaching an all-time high of 72 percent in 1976. After that the media began to lose trust and in 2004 dropped to 44 percent. By 2016 that number hit 32% and while trust recovered to 45 percent in 2018 the latest poll showed a new all-time low of 31 percent.
Both the 2016 and 2024 lows coincide with the election of Donald Trump as President and underscore Americans confidence that the media will cover Trump fairly and accurately given their general animosity towards him.
The poll also showed that 59 percent of Republicans have no trust in the media which ia up sharply from 38 percent in 2016, Independents are close behind with 42 percent in the media up from 31 percent in 2016, while Democrats went in the other direction from 11 percent to just 6 percent.
When compared to other institutions the media ranks just ahead of Congress among Americans who have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in with a net confidence rating of negative 44 percent versus 51 percent.
Don Irvine
Donald Irvine is the chairman of of Accuracy in Academia (AIA), a non-profit research group reporting on bias in education. Irvine follows his father’s legacy, Reed Irvine, to critically analyze the liberal media’s bias and brings over thirty years of media analysis experience. He has published countless blog posts and articles on media bias, in context of current events, and he has been interviewed by many news media outlets during his professional career. He currently hosts a livestream weekly show on AIA’s Facebook page which discusses current events.
Irvine graduated from the University of Maryland and rose up the ranks to become chairman of Accuracy in Media until his transition to AIA.
He resides in the suburbs around the nation’s capital and is a proud father and grandfather.
