Americans’ confidence in television news and newspapers rates below that of a host of other U.S. institutions, results of a new national survey reveal.
Nearly half (46%) of U.S. adults say they have almost no confidence in TV news, while only one in twenty (5%) have a “quite a lot,” according to a new poll by The Economist/YouGov conducted May 22-26.
Likewise, several times as many adults say they have “very little” confidence in newspapers (41%) as say they have quite a lot (5%).
Of the eight U.S. institutions that respondents were asked to rate, TV news had the highest percentage of adults voicing “very little” confidence in, followed by Big Business (45%) and newspapers.
Adults actually expressed more confidence in organized labor, banks, the medical system, church/organized religion and Small Business than they did in either TV news or newspapers. Small Business was the only one of the eight institutions where more said they had “quite a lot of trust” than said they had “very little.”
Confidence in TV news and newspapers has not improved over the past six months. In November of last year, when The Economist/YouGov also asked adults to rate U.S. institutions, 48% said they had very little trust in television news, while only 5% reported having a great deal. Regarding newspapers, 38% said they had very little trust and, again, just 5% voiced a great deal of trust. Previous polls by The Economist/YouGov have found similar low trust in these media.
Americans universally agree that people should fact-check media reports, rather than simply trust what they’re being told – and half say they don’t even need to follow the news to stay informed – according to a Pew Research survey.
Fully 94% of Democrats and Republicans alike think it’s important “for people to do their own research to check the accuracy of the news they get,” the survey of U.S. adults found. What’s more, two-thirds (66%) say it’s “extremely” or “very” important to fact-check what news media report.
It’s also important to get news from media sources with differing political views, according to 88% of adults – and half (52%) call this either extremely or very important.
