By: E&P Staff A new Gallup poll released today show a wide gap between how Republicans and Democrats view the mass media. Nearly 3 in 4 Republicans say the media is "too liberal." But overall, Gallup's director Frank Newport reports, "less than half of Americans, regardless of partisanship, have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in the mass media."
Newport explains: "Republicans in America today remain deeply distrustful of the national news media -- in sharp contrast to Democrats, who have a great deal more trust in the media's accuracy." Exactly twice as many Democrats (66%) express some faith in the media compared with Republicans (33%).
More than twice as many Americans say the news media are too liberal (45%) rather than too conservative (18%). But Newport adds: "Americans' views of the bias in news media are highly related -- as would be expected -- to underlying political orientation."
Some 22% of Democrats find the media "too conservative," but this is a much lower number than the Republican assertion (77%).
The survey of 1,010 adult Americans, taken in mid-September, revealed that only 9% of Americans say they have a great deal of trust and confidence in the mass media to report the news "fully, accurately, and fairly," while another 38% say they have a "fair amount" of trust in the media to do this. This total of 47% trust stands in contrast to the Gallup finding in 1976 which pegged it at 72%.
But Gallup adds: "Americans are less likely to perceive bias in their local news media than in the national news media."
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