Americans' trust in the mass media has reached a “lowest point” for over 50 years, a recent Gallup study found.
Gallup introduction Over the past decades, Americans have held over the past decades in relation to how much they trust the mass media.
Surprisingly, most 68% trusted mass media in 1972 either on a large or fair amount, reaching up to 69% in 1974. In 1976, it reached an all-time high of 72%.
Fast forward, trust in the mass media fell to 51% in 2000 and then fell to 44% in 2004. Since then, trust has progressed well back and forth, but in 2016 it reached 32%.
The trust returned to 45% in 2018, but has since fallen continuously, reaching 40% in 2020, 36% in 2021, 34% in 2022, 32% in 2023 and 31% in 2024.
Gallup has discovered that Republicans in particular have lost faith in the mass media over the past few years, consistent with Trump's emergence in the political field.
About a third of US adults say they don't have any trust in the mass media, but 59% of Republicans hold this view. This is the view that rose particularly sharply between 2015 and 2017 when 21% rose to 48%. The lack of trust in the media among Republicans has surpassed 50% for the first time in 2020 and has since remained at the majority level. Lack of trust has also increased sharply among independents, at 42% now, continuing to be low this year, but at 6% among Democrats.
In 2024, 59% of Republicans said they had no faith in the mass media at all to report the news “completely, accurately and fairly.”
Gallup also discovered that younger generations do not trust mass media very much.
Over the past 20 years, large gaps in trust have also emerged with age. People under the age of 50 are far less trusted in news media than people over 50, especially the oldest Americans (someone over 65). An analysis of the total data for 2022-2024 to increase sample size shows a 17-point gap between the oldest Americans (ages over 65) and Americans under 50 and 26%.
It also turns out that Americans are hardly confident in newspapers and TV news.
The data comes shortly after the Trump administration, which embraced new media including Breitbart News, overhauled the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), causing massive freakouts among facility media.
See – “More Voices, Less than that”: Thank you to Breitbart's Boyle Trump report. To give voice to new media:
“You know, for decades, the White House Correspondents Association, a group of D.C.-based journalists, has long been deciding which journalists will ask the US president in these most intimate spaces,” announced White House Press Director Karoline Leavitt. “No more.”
“We are proud to announce that we intend to give back to those who read your paper, those who watch your TV show and listen to your radio station,” she continued. “As we move forward, the White House press pool will be decided by the White House press team.”
The “retired” outlets that have been denied access have the opportunity to join the pool, she said, adding that “we will continue to rotate among the five major television networks so that the president's remarks are widely heard in this world.”
“We're adding additional streaming services, which will reach audiences that are different from traditional cable and broadcast,” added Leavitt.
