Gallup Blames Brian Williams for Record Lack of Trust in Media

danjoseph | September 29, 2015
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A new Gallup poll finds that only 4 in 10 Americans (40%) say that they have a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in the media. This number ties lows seen in 2012 and 2014 and is down from 55% who said they trusted the media in 1999.

The sharp drop in trust of mass media is most pronounced among those between the ages of 18 and 49, where only 36% of respondents said they trusted outlets such as "newspapers, television and radio"--when it comes to reporting the news fully accurately and fairly."

Self-described Democrats have far more trust in the media than Republicans and independents with 55% saying they were at least somewhat trustworthy of the media's ability to report the news in a fair and accurate manner. That's more than 20 percentage points higher than both Republicans and Independents who took part in the survey.

Gallup cites several possible reasons for the polls findings, including the recent controversy surrounding NBC's Brian Williams who was exposed as having fabricated personal accounts of news events, earlier this year. 

"Americans' trust level in the media has drifted downward over the past decade. The same forces behind the drop in trust in government more generally, as well confidence in many U.S. institutions, may also be at work with the media. But some of the loss in trust may have been self-inflicted. Major venerable news organizations have been caught making serious mistakes in the past several years, including the scandal involving former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams in 2015 that some of his firsthand accounts of news events had been exaggerated or "misremembered."

The poll surveyed 1,025 adults.

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