Republican trust in media cut in half since 2016: poll

Trust in media outlets among Republicans has been reduced by half since the 2016 election, according to a new poll. 

Data from the Pew Research Center released on Monday shows support and trust in the press among Republicans dropping from 70 percent in 2016 to 35 percent this year. 

Along partisan lines, 78 percent of Democrats or Democrat-leaning independents said they they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the information that comes from national news organizations. But among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, only 35 percent said the same thing, Pew found. 

That’s the largest partisan gap on the issue Pew has found since 2016.

A large portion of the GOP drop in trust in the media has taken place over the last year, from 49 percent in 2019 to the current 35 percent level. 

Overall, only 12 percent of Americans surveyed said that they have “a lot” of trust in the information coming from national news outlets. 

And the distrust of media among Republicans is not only at a national level. Pew found as of June, Democrats are 18 percentage points more likely than Republicans to have at least some trust in the media, by a margin of 84 percent to 66 percent. 

The Pew poll was conducted June 14-27 among 10,606 people. It has a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points.