Trust In News Media Lower Than Ever Among Americans In New Gallup Poll

Americans’ trust in the media has slumped to an all-time low, according to a Gallup survey released Thursday.

Nearly seven in ten Americans say they don’t trust the press — a finding underscored by recent controversies over coverage of the Charlie Kirk assassination and the murder of a Ukrainian on a light rail in North Carolina.

Just 28% of Americans say they have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence in newspapers, television, and radio to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” compared to 31% last year, according to a  Gallup survey released Thursday. By contrast, 34% say they have no trust at all, and another 36% say they have “not very much” confidence.

Confidence in the media breaks sharply along party lines. Republican trust in the media has fallen to 8%, the first time it has dropped into single digits. Among Democrats, 51% say they have a great or fair amount of trust in the media, while only 9% say they have no trust. Independents are more divided, with 27% expressing trust and 32% reporting none at all.

Trust in the media also shows a clear generational divide that has widened over the past decade, according to three-year aggregated data. From 2023 to 2025, 43% of adults 65 and older said they trust the media, compared with no more than 28% in any younger age group, Gallup found.

Americans’ overall confidence in the media has been declining steadily since Gallup first began tracking it in 1972. At the time, 68% said they had a great deal of trust, while just 6% said they had no faith in the institution at all.

Despite the growing trend of left-wing extremist violence