In 2025, trust in journalism reached a record low. According to Gallup, only 8% of Republicans expressed trust in the news media, compared with 51% of Democrats. New data show an uptick among Republicans, but overall trust remains near this record low, and the gap between Republicans and Democrats remains substantial.
One of the key drivers of this lopsided decline in trust in journalism may be the extent to which news outlets spend time bashing other news outlets, or bashing the news media in general — a phenomenon we call inter-journalism disparagement. Our research team at Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy recently completed a study of the prominence of this phenomenon on each of the “big three” cable news networks (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC/MS NOW); whether it has increased or decreased over time; and whether there are significant differences in the rate of disparagement across networks.
The results were stark. Fox News far exceeds the other networks, with inter-journalism disparagement taking place once every 14.5 minutes. In contrast, CNN engages in inter-journalism disparagement roughly every 140 minutes, and MSNBC every 61 minutes.
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