Americans' Confidence in News Lower Than Ever

Confidence in the media has sunk to a new low in the U.S., according to a recent survey by Gallup. Trust has been largely on the decline for more than thirty years, but has plummeted five percentage points since last year.

Television news seems to muster up particularly low confidence, with only 11 percent of U.S. survey respondents saying they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot of” confidence in the medium in June 2022, versus four percent that had no trust at all. Newspapers fared a little better, although still poorly, with 16 percent of people having confidence in it as a news source, and three percent without trust.

According to Gallup, the majority of Americans would say the media fails to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” and that newspaper and TV reporters are not highly ethical.