According to a Hill-HarrisX survey released on Thursday, fewer Americans actively trust the media and more Americans actively distrust the media than when the same survey was taken just one month ago.
The title of The Hill’s piece on the survey, “Poll: More independent voters trusting of news stories,” is somewhat misleading once one digs into the data.
The survey asks the question: “Do you mostly believe or mostly do not believe the news stories that are reported in the media?”
In November, 11% of self-identified independents answered that they “almost always believe what is reported in the media.” Only 6% said the same in the survey released on Thursday.
In November, 16% of independents stated that they “almost never believe what is reported in the media,” while in Thursday’s release, that number ticked upward to 18%.
In those categories, trust in the media among independents appears to have dwindled as distrust has grown. There are two other categories where trust appears to have increased – with a caveat.
While in November, 36% of independents said that they “believe most news stories, but do not trust certain sources,” 44% said the same in the December survey. That’s an 8% jump, which is statistically significant, as it falls outside the survey’s margin of error, which is +/- 3.1 points.
In another category, trust in “sources” and distrust in overall “news” show a mixed result.
37% of November’s independents said that they “do not believe most news stories, but do trust certain sources,” while 31% said the same in December.
These are interesting answers because they don’t simply deal with the nature of trustworthiness in news broadly, but in specific sources of news. In our increasingly polarized political and cultural climate, it might be trust in a particular organization or individual dispensing information that trumps the information itself.
Let’s look at how Republicans and Democrats answered these questions.
In November, 17% of self-identified Republicans said that they “almost always believe what is reported in the media,” while only 11% said the same in December. In November, 30% of Republicans said that they “almost never believe what is reported in the media,” while 35% said the same in December.
This, of course, shows an overall increase in media distrust among Republicans.
When it comes to sources, it was a mixed bag for Republicans, with the number of respondents who “believe most news stories, but do not trust certain sources” tracking from 24% in November to 28% in December, but the number of respondents claiming that they “do not believe most news stories, but do trust certain sources” moving from 29% down to 26%.
Polling for Democrats indicates more broad trust in the media overall. 22% of Democratic respondents in November said that they “almost always believe what is reported in the media,” and in December, 23% said the same.
In November, only 5% of Democratic respondents said that they “almost never believe what is reported in the media.” In December, that number ticked up to 6%.
59% of Democrats polled said that they “believe most news stories, but do not trust certain sources” in November compared to 50% in December. 13% said that they “do not believe most news stories, but do trust certain sources” in November compared to 21% in December.
Of course, all of this is a snapshot in time of two representative but different groups of Americans. While many of the numbers did see changes that fell outside the margin of error, others remained fairly flat.
While surveys such as these certainly identify a problem, the questions that must be asked if such a problem is going to be solved are:
- Why don’t Americans trust the news media?
- What can be done so that Americans can trust the media?
- Who bears the greatest burden for fixing the problem?
According to an early-2019 survey by Pew Research, more Americans believe that politicians (57%) and activist groups (53%) are responsible for creating false news than journalists (36%) and the public (26%).
In the age of social media, there is a certain level of culpability that rests on politicians, activists organizations, and even the public (who share false information on various platforms without first fact-checking), but the choke point is and will always be journalists.
Check out the November survey here, and the December survey here.