A recent poll found that more than half of Americans believe that the national news media does not care about their best interests. Other results from the poll showed large percentages of the public having little trust in national media.
A recent Gallup poll showed large shares of the American public having doubts about the national media’s ability to report without bias. The poll comes during a time of low trust in media sources, especially national outlets.
The public rated newsrooms in general as having the resources and skills necessary to collect the news “accurately and fairly” to the general public, with 72% agreeing.
However, the public assessment regarding the results of these efforts is sharply more negative, with 35% of respondents stating that they trust “most national news organizations” to deliver needed information, with 39% disagreeing.
In addition, similar margins stated that “most news organizations care about how their reporting can either positively or negatively affect American society, culture and politics.”
Regarding the answer about whether or not “most national news organizations” intend to mislead, 25% indicated that such a bias exists and 50% disagreed.
When asked about whether or not such media outlets “care about the best interests” of their consumers, just 23% agreed and 52% disagreed.
The results of the recent Gallup survey also come at a time of low trust in the media and is not the first poll in recent years to find the same.
The timing of the poll comes after concern regarding multiple elements reported by the media, including recent elections and the COVID-19 pandemic. Polling during the early stages of the pandemic found more than a third of Americans believed that the news media’s coverage was “hurting the country” or “working to benefit themselves.”
Public trust in media is close to non-existent. This new Gallup poll reveals that only the Dem-controlled Congress (7%) is trusted less by the public than TV news (11%), with newspapers (16%) also very near the bottom.
Almost zero self-critique from journalists about why. pic.twitter.com/Okg5Rbh2Ix
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 5, 2022
Just 27% of Republicans believed that the reporting was helping the country compared to 63% of Democrats. Just 28% of Republicans believe that media coverage was “working for the benefit of the public.”
In addition, many national media sources claimed a natural origin for the coronavirus even after doubts about such a start entered public discourse. Today, a plurality of 44% believes that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory.
