Why Americans Don’t Trust the Media
Bubba
16 Oct
A number of recent press controversies might explain why trust in mass media is at record-low levels. (Axios)
Chart: Axios
CBS’ Ta-Nehisi Coates meltdown: Last week, the network publicly chastised “CBS Mornings” co-anchor Tony Dokoupil for civilly pushing back on Coates’ one-sided account of the Israel-Gaza conflict during an interview with the author in early October.
Things got messier after CBS executives invited Donald Grant, a DEI expert and “trauma trainer,” to moderate an all-staff meeting about Dokoupil’s supposed breach of journalistic standards.
CBS was then forced to disinvite Grant after Twitter sleuths unearthed his questionable social media posting history, which included insinuating that GOP Sen. Tim Scott is an “Uncle Tom.”
“60 Minutes’” Kamala edits: The CBS program was accused of airing two versions of Kamala Harris’ answer to an interviewer’s question to make her meandering response sound better.
Judge for yourself: Watch it here.
J.D. Vance vs. ABC News: On Sunday, “This Week” anchor Martha Raddatz downplayed the seriousness of Aurora, Colorado’s Venezuelan migrant gang problem, telling the GOP vice presidential nominee that “the incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes.”
Vance’s reply: “Martha, do you hear yourself? Only ‘a handful of apartment complexes’ in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’ open border?”
Mike Johnson vs. NBC News: Over the weekend, NBC News anchor Kristen Welker repeatedly pressed the House speaker on whether Donald Trump should release more of his medical records, asking, “You don’t want to know things like his cholesterol level, whether he’s dealing with any issue that we may not know about, if he’s going to be commander in chief?”
Johnson’s reply: “Kristen, listen to your question! … The American people don’t care about the cholesterol level of Donald Trump. They care about the cost of living and the fact they cannot pay for groceries …”
New York Times plays defense on plagiarism: The Times downplayed multiple instances of blatant plagiarism in the vice president’s 2009 book, claiming an expert characterized the behavior as “not serious.”
That same expert later clarified in an X/Twitter post that he hadn’t analyzed the entire book and the assessment quoted in the Times was “based on information provided to me by the reporters and spoke only about those passages.”
A new Gallup survey: Only 31% of Americans trust the mass media "a great deal" or "a fair amount" in 2024, down from 32% in 2023, matching the 2016 record low.
Media is the least trusted institution: More Americans trust Congress, the Supreme Court, and local and state governments than the media, per Gallup.
Most of the decline is happening with the young: Trust among those aged 18-29 is at a record low of 26%, and only 31% of young Democrats trust the media compared to 74% of Democrats aged 65 and older.
Independents are also driving the trend - trust among this demographic hit a record low of 27% in 2024.
Bubba’s Two Cents
Winning back “MAGA” voters may be out of reach for the mainstream media, but it conceivably has a shot at rebuilding trust with regular Americans. That won’t happen if the media keeps delivering blatantly slanted stories. The pattern is impossible to ignore, and the public isn’t oblivious to it, as the survey data keeps showing.