Polls on Media Bias
Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner reports a new poll shows more voters than not find the Big Three network newscasts and the nation’s three largest liberal newspapers “untrustworthy.” The latest Zogby poll asked specifically about "NBC, CBS, and ABC, along with large newspapers such as the New York Times, L.A. Times, and Washington Post?”The results? Forty-eight percent believe these outlets are untrustworthy while 45 percent said they did trust them.
This isn't a great poll number for the press. Gallup reports that “Just over a third of Americans (37%) in 2017 say news organizations generally get the facts straight, unchanged from the last time Gallup asked this question in 2003.” While overall perception of the media’s accuracy is stable, major partisan shifts emerged over the past 14 years. Republicans' trust in the media's accuracy has fallen considerably, while Democrats' opinions on the matter have swung in the opposite direction. Sixty-two percent of Democrats believe the media get the facts straight...compared to just 14 percent of Republicans.
Monday's PBS NewsHour spotlighted the low trust in the news media, according to the results of their latest poll. Only 30 percent of those surveyed by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist trust the press "a good deal" or "a great amount." The Trump administration scored seven points better in the same poll. Guest Stuart Rothenberg bemoaned the "horrible trend" towards distrust of the media over the past several decades.
If you believe that the news media's coverage of allegations involving President Donald Trump has been irresponsible and over-dramatized, you’re not alone. According to a new poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, 50 percent of participants believe the media have favored people making allegations against the Republican occupant of the White House; 34 percent think the media have been responsible; and 12 percent say the media have been too restrained.
More research from liberal universities has confirmed that not only is the media biased against Trump, but a majority of the public doesn’t trust what they read from the mainstream media either. These findings echo a Gallup poll from September that showed only 32 percent of Americans trusted the media.
On Monday, we noted the latest Rasmussen Reports survey found that 46 percent of those surveyed felt the debate moderators would assist Hillary Clinton – something that happened with liberal Lester Holt in Monday’s debate. On Friday, Rasmussen has a new survey of 1,000 likely voters demonstrating a major distrust in media-elite “fact checking” of the candidates:
Apparently, the public has been made painfully aware that the moderators will not be fair in this election cycle. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey taken before the first debate found "a plurality (46%) of likely U.S. voters believes most moderators will try to help Clinton in the upcoming debates. Only six percent (6%) think they will try to help Trump instead. Just 32% say most of the moderators will try to be unbiased."
According to a new poll by Gallup, Americans’s trust in their media fell to a shocking new low. Asked if they believe the press will “report the news fully, accurately and fairly,” a meager 32 percent answered in the affirmative. Gallup’s Art Swift noted, “This is down eight percentage points from last year.”
A new Gallup survey has revealed that Americans have approximately twice as much confidence in law enforcement personnel -- 52 percent -- as they do in newspapers -- 24 percent -- and television news -- 21 percent.
The telephone poll was conducted June 2-7 and included Gallup's newest survey on confidence in U.S. institutions, which it has updated every year since 1993.
A new poll from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics has some alarming findings about the trustworthiness of the American media. Among adults aged 18-29, the poll found that just 12 percent believe the media "do the right thing."