Gallup: Confidence in the media falls to new low ahead of presidential election

New polling shows a record-low 31% of adults have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in the media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” as the presidential election looms.

Gallup reported Monday that confidence is down by 1 percentage point from the 32% who said the same in a survey last year. The 2023 survey result tied that of 2016, when just 32% of adults expressed substantial trust in the media before Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defeated Democratic presidential Hillary Clinton to win the White House, for the lowest mark in the poll going back to 1972.

The polling company noted that more adults surveyed expressed no trust at all (36%) than expressed trust in newspaper, television and radio outlets for the third straight year. Another 33% of Americans expressed “not very much” confidence.

“The news media is the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process,” Gallup senior editor Megan Brenan wrote in a summary of the findings.

Ms. Brenan noted that the media edged out Congress, the federal judiciary, politicians in general, foreign policymakers, the executive branch and domestic policymakers in earning Americans’ distrust.

But only local governments, state governments and “the American people as a whole” earned the trust of most adults responding to the latest survey.

Gallup also noted a growing age gap affecting self-identified Republicans and Democrats. While 43% of all adults 65 and older expressed significant trust in the media, just 26% of adults under 50 said the same.

The survey found trust levels at or near record lows for all political affiliations. Gallup reported that 54% of Democrats, 27% of independents and just 12% of Republicans said they have “a great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media this year.

Gallup conducted a randomized national telephone survey of 1,007 adults on Sept. 3-15. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.