Poll: Americans’ Trust in News Media Has Collapsed

Gallup reports that Americans’ confidence in the news media has collapsed over the past three decades. Indeed, Americans’ trust in mass media such as newspapers, TV and radio has reached its lowest point in more than five decades, new polling finds.

In the 1970s, about two-thirds of Americans trusted mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report news fully, accurately and fairly. Today, Americans are divided roughly into thirds in how they view the mass media. Some 31% trust the media “a great deal” or “a fair amount,” while 33% say they do not trust it very much and 36% say they have no trust at all in the news media.

Broken down by political affiliation, 59% of U.S. adult Republicans polled say they have no trust at all in the mass media, compared to 50% in 2020, Gallup reports. Trust in mass media has also fallen sharply among independents, to 42%. Conversely, just 6% of Democrats say they have no trust in the news media. 

Respondents younger than 50 have much less trust in the news media than those 50 and older, and particularly those 65 and older, Gallup’s research found. 

Gallup’s annual survey of confidence in U.S. public institutions found that in 2024, as in recent years, news media — specifically newspapers and television news — ranked near the bottom, just above Congress.