A recent landmark poll of 20,000 citizens undertaken by the Knight Foundation and Gallup found that Americans’ hope for and trust in an objective media is all but lost. They see not only an ever-growing partisanship in news reporting but a determination by the mainstream media to push a political agenda instead of honestly disseminating the news. While generic faith in the media has been gradually declining over recent decades, the precipitous drop in trust and questions about what motivates the mainstream media can be traced to June 2015 and Donald Trump’s entry into the presidential sweepstakes.
This latest Gallup poll is the most devastating indictment of the media in polling history. Some highlights:
- 84% of surveyed Americans lay either a moderate or a great deal of the blame for today’s partisan hostility at the feet of the media.
- Further, 82% believe news outlets are either deliberately “misrepresenting the facts” or are “making them up entirely”.
- This is further amplified as 79% of those surveyed say media outlets are trying to persuade people to adopt a certain opinion about an issue or an individual.
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