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Trust Fall

Americans are as skeptical of the media as they’ve ever been

None more so than the youngest generations

10/16/24 8:37AM

Amidst the pervasive sludge of AI-generated content, ongoing conflicts around the world, and a monumental US election that’s now only 3 weeks away, the share of Americans who have a “great deal/fair amount” of trust in the mass media to report the news fully, fairly, and accurately has never been lower.

That’s according to a recent installment of a Gallup survey, which dates back to 1972 and has run almost every year since 1997, with the latest update revealing that just 31% of US adults reported having the top level of trust in mediums including newspapers and TV. By comparison, 33% said that they had “not very much” trust in the mass media, while 36% reported having “none at all”.

Falling trust in the media — Sherwood News

Fake news

The amount of trust Americans have in the mass media took a significant hit in 2016, a year in which Oxford Dictionaries declared “post-truth” the international word of the year, but this year has seen faith fall across every age group, not least the youngest cohorts. Across the 4 age ranges tracked by the Gallup survey, Americans aged 18-29 and those aged 30-49 reported having the least trust in mass media to report news accurately, both hitting a record low of just 26%.

It’s hard to overlook the simultaneous rise of social media alongside this fall in trust, as more and more of us each year put faith in our social feeds to stay up to date.

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What happened?

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