Trust in the media is coming dangerously close to a new all-time low.
According to a recently released survey from Gallup, only 36% of U.S. adults have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in mass media, which includes newspapers, TV, and radio.
Respondents were asked: “In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media … when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly — a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?”
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While only 7% expressed having “a great deal” of trust, 29% said they have “a fair amount.”
The findings, released in early October, mark the second lowest in Gallup’s history. In 2016, the polling service calculated a mere 32% of American adults trusted the media. Twenty-nine percent currently say they have “not very much” trust in the medial while 34% said they have “none at all.”
Broken down along party lines, 68% of Democrats, 31% of independents, and 11% of Republicans trust the news media.
CNN’s Brian Stelter — the network’s media correspondent — went on the defensive over the weekend, using the Gallup survey to smear its biggest competitor, Fox News.
He argued the reason trust is so low is because there are, in essence, too many cooks in the kitchen: there are too many people and sites these days counted as forms of “media.” Stelter went on to suggest even Fox News should not be considered a legitimate news source due to its lack of international bureaus and its roster of commentators.
It’s worth noting that, while most would probably consider hosts like CNN’s Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo opinionated commentators, Stelter does not.
Stelter went on to declare CNN deserves public trust because the network is committed to “reporting” and “doing the work,” unlike its competitors, which he said are in the business of “repeating” talking points.
The new Gallup numbers come as veteran broadcast journalist Katie Couric admitted in her forthcoming memoir that she edited a 2016 interview with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, leaving out the left-leaning jurist’s criticism of the NFL players who knelt during the national anthem.
And last week, podcaster Joe Rogan called out CNN’s medical expert Sanjay Gupta over the fact that the outlet wrongly reported that he took a horse dewormer to treat his COVID-19 infection. Rogan took ivermectin, an anti-malarial drug that, while not approved to treat the novel coronavirus, is used to treat other issues within humans.
“It’s a lie,” Rogan told Gupta. “It’s a lie on a news network.”
Gupta, for his part, agreed, adding it was “not a flattering thing” for CNN to air. He added, “They shouldn’t have said it was a horse [dewormer]. If you got a human pill … it shouldn’t be called that.”
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