Terry JonesYou might think that the first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term in office has been especially rough on the media. But if you do, you’re very wrong. In fact, though still not in positive territory, trust in the media has jumped sharply over the same half-year period a year earlier, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.
In I&I/TIPP’s online national poll of 1,421 adults, taken from June 25 to June 27, we asked (as we do each month) the following question:
Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the traditional or established news media (Example: Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, CBS News, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?”
For our July poll, 41% said they either had “a lot of trust” (17%) or “quite a bit of trust” (24%). Meanwhile, 51% responded that they had either “little trust” (28%) or “no trust at all” (23%). Of the remaining poll participants, 8% weren’t sure.
But the opinion is not evenly distributed when it comes to political leanings.
For instance, Democrats are fairly sanguine about the big media that still loom over the news landscape. They are the only political grouping that trusts the media: 53% say they trust, 42% say they don’t trust the media.
For Republicans and independents, distrust is the common-ground: Republicans (40% trust, 55% distrust) and indie voters (32% trust, 59% distrust) are big-time media skeptics.
I&I/TIPP also asks a second follow-on question monthly:
Generally speaking, how much trust do you have in the alternative news media (Example: New York Post, Washington Times, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, etc.) to report the news accurately and fairly?
Not surprisingly, the pattern for this question was similar, but with a slightly wider gap in the responses. Of those taking part, 36% said they either had “quite a lot of trust” (14%) or “quite a bit of trust” (22%), while on the other side 55% said they had “little trust” (33%) or “no trust at all” (22%). Among the rest, 9% were unsure.
And this time, political differences in how people answered were far more similar.
When it comes to the alternative media, only 39% of Democrats said they trusted these outlets, versus 52% who said they distrusted them. For Republicans (41% trust, 53% no trust) and indie voters (26% trust, 63% no trust) it was even worse.
But while this might paint a picture of a media held in low esteem by the public, it’s in fact a dramatically improved picture for media trust over the past year.
That’s especially true when you compare the trend over the six months in early 2024 that led up to former President Joe Biden’s crushing debate performance and subsequent decision to drop out of the race, and the first six months of Trump’s tenure in office.
Monthly data can jump around, depending on events. To give a more accurate reflection of actual trends in media trust, I&I/TIPP has created a media index. It’s a way of making apples-to-oranges comparisons on a monthly basis over time.
Right now, the index data show dramatic improvement for all major media. Is it another Trump effect?
During the six months extending from February 2024 to July 2024, the Traditional Media Index pretty much treaded water, averaging roughly 38.6, with a high of 41.5 and a low of 36.7.
That spell of public low esteem for the media changed dramatically in Trump’s first six months in office. Traditional media readings jumped to an average of 44.7, a 16% gain over Biden’s comparable six months the year before.
It wasn’t a fluke. A similar pattern prevailed with the Alternative Media Index. It averaged 34.5 for the February-July 2024 Biden period, but 41.3 during Trump’s first six months, a 20% gain.
So what happened? No question the Republican Party response was responsible for the change.
Broken down by political party, Democrats’ trust gained 0.3 points or 0.7%; independents’ trust gained 4.6 points or 16%; but the Republicans were off the chart, adding a whopping 13.9 points or 44% to their average Alternative Media Trust score.
That’s an enormous gain. Why did it happen?
The media, it seems, can blame themselves.
For much of the Biden administration and after, major media outlets all but ignored the president’s increasingly obvious mental issues, along with the toll some of his policies were taking on the country (among them, soaring federal spending and debt, a failed $4 trillion tax hike, and at least 12 million illegals crossing into the U.S. over his time in office, among other major problems.) Both Republicans and independents complained, to no avail.
Rather than reporting facts with broad context, much of the media spun their wheels and ignored the implications of big stories, then in some instances farcically denied having any bias at all.
But bias does exist, and it taints what the media do.
Just a few recent examples of this include the flat-out false claim by CNN that egg prices “rose” under Trump, to the New York Times’ softball coverage of Biden’s outlandish claim that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” to CNN and MSNBC virtually ignoring the July 4 violent armed ambush of U.S. ICE agents.
And then there was the media’s intentional sidelining of the Russiagate and Epstein scandals, which are still unfolding and could lead to former top government officials being charged with crimes.
As the Knight Foundation wrote in a report seven years ago, “One of Americans’ chief concerns about media is bias, and Americans are much more likely to perceive bias in the news today than they were a generation ago.”
Today, as the I&I/TIPP Poll data show, Americans are a little more trusting of the media, in particular Republicans and independents.
A lot of that might be the undeniable, and perhaps to some surprising, success of the Trump administration’s first six months. Even the left-leaning Los Angeles Times had to admit “a lot of wins” for Trump in the first half year of 2025.
Many of the catastrophes that had blithely been predicted by major media outlets and their hand-selected commentators simply never happened — including predictions of soaring inflation, world recession from Trump’s tariffs, World War III in the Mideast (or Ukraine), and the impossibility of closing our open southern border, among other things.
Part of it might be recent efforts made by major media to alter how they report the news and interpret it, including:
- Skydance chief David Ellison has reportedly told his CBS employees that he wants “unbiased” and “American storytelling” at the network, after years of claims of extreme bias by critics of the network.
- Washington Post owner and billionaire Jeff Bezos has told the news organization’s journalists to pivot toward “defending personal liberties and the free market, a shift from its traditional broad focus,” the AP reported, prompting the Post’s opinion editor to resign.
- After years of trying to turn the Los Angeles Times around and move its editorial content towards the political center, owner Patrick Soon-Shiong plans to take the company public, issuing stock. Control by outside investors expecting returns likely means a new era in how the liberal newspaper reports news.
- PBS and NPR just lost their big government sugar daddy, as Trump’s $1 billion plus in cuts cause the once-sacred “public” television and radio to compete with social media, websites and video streaming services. It couldn’t go on forever.
And the truth is, both the Traditional Media and the Alternative Media are struggling financially and scrambling to find an audience at a time of fast changing technology and readers’ preferences . While major media outlets no doubt can find an audience and get advertising support, they will have to broaden their appeal to do so.
But one thing’s for sure: Politicized news is not popular with Americans, who are tired of being lied to by the very people they count on to tell them the truth. Media can have a point of view, but truth and objectivity are standards that Americans expect and demand.
I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP’s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past six presidential elections.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
Support Independent Journalism
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists from the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day -- without fear or favor.
We’re doing this on a voluntary basis because we believe in a free press and because we aren't afraid to tell the truth, even if it means being targeted by the left.
We are 100% reader supported!!
If you like what you see, please feel free to donate.
And be sure to tell your friends!
Trust in the legacy media is high? Really? That must be why legendary newspapers like WAPO, and network news like CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and ABC are losing readership and viewership, and are dumping high priced help, losing advertising dollars, and are on the verge of going out of business?
Who could find fault with that kind of logic?
Not buying it because I don’t see it anywhere. The media is just as bad as it was during Trump’s first term and the democrats have gone full NAZI since then. (I use the term NAZI because the democrats ARE fascist and they want jews exterminated. I used to just say they are fascist, because Obama turned them into that, but we’ve seen them add antisemitism to that during the brain-dead auto-pen’s term.)
Good points by Kozlovich.
When I was young in the 50s&60s I use to trust media. And there was good reason. The news anchors (while they may have been liberal) reported the facts.
Come’s the new millennium and there was a subtle shift-especially in Trump’s 1st term. Then the shift became harsher and more obvious.
Russian Collusion, Hunter’s Laptop, Golden Showers in Russia. There was even stories that Trump committed rape (I believe the jury convicted him of sexual assault). However, it was a NYCity jury that was just as biased as it was deranged.
I think Trump was in his 40’s and the woman was in her 60’s. How believable that he assaulted her in a dressing room? I guess it was believable to the jury, which, in my opinion, didn’t prove Trump’s guilt but just proved the bias and derangement of the jury.
Nowadays, the media’s charlatan reporting and deranged ethics seemed to have filtered down to society at large.
Look at all the lawfare Trump had to deal with-and the unhinged Prosecuting Attorneys!
Now, not only do we have juries that don’t listen to the alternative view, but that vote on, like a fan for a sports team, whether or not the prosecution is on their team.
For instance we have Federal Judges who think they are in charge. The enjoin all across the US even though they are judges in one district of one state. And the media never points this out-or points it out in the middle of the 27th paragraph.
I think the media should now be defined as podcasts/videos that are all over the internet. Yes, they have points of view but they tell you the full facts before giving their opinions. The full facts are nearly always pronounced because they have a lot of podcasting competition.
The I&I headline is not really that astonishing. What would be astonishing is if the poll was on the legacy media and it was found to now be trustworthy. It’s hard to know if those asked the questions really understood that podcasters were not included.
Anyway, this is my take. One thing I know is that (except for Fox-which you’re right. It does lean conservative, but it also gives you the facts before forming its opinion) CNN, MSNBC, even the Times and the Post come to a (Leftist) conclusion and gives you only the facts that support their case.
They intentionally leave out the facts that go against their case.
So I’ll never trust the mainstream media again. They don’t deserve my trust because they haven’t earned it. As a matter of fact, they deserve my mistrust of them because that they have earned.
Our Philadelphia Inquirer is like subsidized housing; the editors, CEO and commentators are there because no one else would have them. Almost went bankrupt but for a lefty foundation that subsides it now.
The level of their intellect reminds me of the level of the editors of my college newspaper, full on sophomoric, but damn sure they are right and righteous and everyone else is wrong.
Very good sports page, however!
Bravo, I&I. You folks can actually calculate percentages correctly. (44.7-38.6)/38.6 = 16%. Most of the media cannot.