Americans’ trust in media, US government reaches all-time low
Americans’ trust in the media and Congress has hit a historic low, according to a new Gallup poll, while confidence in local government remains significantly higher. The poll highlights a deep partisan divide, with Republicans expressing particularly low confidence in the media.
According to the survey, only 31% of Americans trust mass media to report news fully, accurately and fairly, making it the least trusted civic institution.
Gallup/Straight Arrow News
By comparison, 67% of respondents say they trust their local government, and 34% express trust in Congress.
The survey also shows that only 12% of Republicans trust the media, compared to 54% of Democrats and 27% of Independents.
Media trust saw a slight rebound after falling to 32% in 2016, but the latest numbers suggest any recovery has evaporated. The implications of this declining trust remain unclear, though it points to growing demand for transparency and accountability in national institutions.
How you can be so sure you’re right when you’re actually wrong
You know that feeling when you’re in a debate with someone and you make a point, and you just know you’re right – only to find out that self-assuredness was misplaced and you’re actually just very wrong? It turns out, there’s a scientific reason people can be so confidently wrong.
A newly published study shows it boils down to you thinking you have all the information you need to form an opinion when you really don’t.
“Our brains are overconfident that they can arrive at a reasonable conclusion with very little information,” explained one of the study’s co-authors, Angus Fletcher, an English professor at Ohio State University.
The researchers wanted to know how people make judgements about situations or other people based on their confidence in the information they have, even if they don’t have all the information they may need. So, researchers rounded up 1,300 people and had them read a fictitious story.
Of the 1,300 people, 500 were given a version that was biased in favor of a certain point of view, another 500 were given one biased against that view, and 300 were given a balanced article.
The fake story was about a school that was running out of water because its local aquifer was drying up, so a merger with another school was being considered.
Once the participants read the story, researchers asked their opinions on what the school should do and how confident they were that they had all the information they needed to make that judgment.
But then, the researchers had half the people from each group also read the other group’s version of the story. Researchers found once people had all the facts, they were more likely to change their mind.
They also found those who only read one, biased version of the article were more confident in their opinions than those who read both articles.
Google scrambles to improve AI after strange answers and major outage
Google is addressing the inaccuracies that emerged with its AI-generated search results. Earlier this month, the results began providing incorrect and sometimes dangerous responses. Meanwhile, Google is recovering from an unexplained outage Friday, May 31, that disrupted news searches worldwide.
The company announced plans to scale back some features and implement at least a dozen technical improvements. Google’s head of search, Liz Reid, explained in a recent blog post that the issues were due to “data voids” and searches designed to generate bizarre results. In a notable example that went viral, the AI suggested adding non-toxic glue to pizza to help the cheese stick better, a tip traced back to an old Reddit post.
Reid elaborated on the challenges of interpreting nonsensical queries and satirical content, using the query, “How many rocks should I eat?” as an example, which gained attention only after screenshots went viral.
As Google strives to refine its search results, it encountered another setback when its Google News services failed, leaving users without results under the “News” panel. DownDetector.com reported a spike in global outages, causing widespread frustration among users.
These incidents underscore the critical importance of reliability as Google aggressively expands into the AI market. The company has not yet confirmed if the new AI-enhanced features were responsible for the recent service disruptions.
AllSides study finds left-leaning bias in Google News, other aggregators
An estimated 280 million users depend on Google News, a news aggregator that sources from over 50,000 outlets worldwide. However, a recent study by AllSides Media suggests that these sources might not be as unbiased as users believe.
During a two-week analysis, AllSides discovered that left-leaning sources constituted 63% of Google News content in 2023, a slight increase from 61% in the previous year. Conversely, right-leaning outlets represented 6% in 2023, up from 3% in 2022.
The study also highlighted an imbalance in political coverage, particularly leading up to the 2022 midterm elections. Searches for “election” yielded fewer results from outlets classified as center, right-leaning or right by AllSides.
Right-leaning sources seldom exceeded 12% of search results, except for searches related to the keyword “Biden.”
In an examination of 494 homepage articles on Google News, AllSides found that eight of the top 10 sources exhibited a left-leaning or left bias. This left-leaning trend was also identified in Bing News, Apple News and Yahoo News.
News aggregators aim to be neutral, offering content from across the political spectrum. However, factors like algorithmic curation and user interaction can influence the visibility of certain political perspectives, potentially creating filter bubbles or echo chambers.
John Gable, CEO and co-founder of AllSides, suggested that the skewed results might reflect a profit motive, where news favoring one political side generates more views, clicks and ad revenue.
Despite these findings, Google has consistently stated that it does not and will not bias its search results for political purposes. A 2019 report by The Economist found that Google’s search engine prioritizes “expertise” and “trustworthiness” over ideology.
Cable news ratings fall, more Americans turn to digital sources and social media
News consumption habits are changing. Year-over-year data shows that people are turning away from cable networks and instead turning to digital news.
Fox saw a 20% decline in viewership overall — although the news outlet still ranks No. 1 due to its amount of viewers. Meanwhile, CNN saw a 19% drop in viewership.
In the targeted demographic of adults aged 25-54, Fox lost 38% of its audience, and CNN is down 27%. MSNBC was the only major news network with an increase, gaining 2%.
If major cable networks like Fox and CNN lost roughly one-fifth of their total viewership and one-third of their younger audience, where are those viewers going to get their news and how reliable is it?
Digital news sources saw growth in 2023 while other mediums shrunk. Digital news sites like NewsBreak and Newsweek saw between 60% to 90% growth year-over-year.
According to Pew Research, 86% of Americans turn to their digital devices to stay informed. Two-thirds of Americans said they visit news websites or news apps, and half of Americans said they often or sometimes use social media as a news source.
Some social media outlets can make it difficult to get the full picture for a news piece. For instance, Facebook’s algorithm demotes posts that have news links attached.
According to Meta’s most recent 2023 Q3 statistics, 95% of post views did not include a link to a source outside Facebook. However, 5% of content did include a source link, which is up slightly from 3% in Q1.
Social media also has a complicated history of selective censorship of what content users are allowed to see.
Big Tech can pick and choose posts visible to its users under the current law known as Section 230. However, the law has been challenged by Texas and Florida after alleged suppression of content during the pandemic.
The Supreme Court is poised to potentially decide this summer if Big Tech violates free speech by utilizing algorithms.
Viewership typically slows during an off-election year, however, heading into a general election year, the decline in recent ratings also comes as the public faces high levels of news fatigue and concerns over if the media is accurately reporting the news.
Americans say media bias divides the nation. This chart shows most polarizing.
For the first time in recorded history, more Americans report having no trust in mass media reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly than those who trust media a fair or great amount. The results from the most recent Gallup poll on the topic show overall trust in media remains near a record low.
Meanwhile, nearly 3 in 4 Americans believe the media is doing more to increase polarization in the country, according to a 2023 AP-NORC poll.
Media bias is a prevailing concern for news consumers. Half of Americans reported feeling that most national news organizations intend to mislead, misinform or persuade the public, Gallup and Knight Foundation found.
It’s no surprise, then, that Americans are increasingly searching for unbiased news sources. Google searches spike around elections, with the most interest in history recorded in November 2020.
“Americans recognize the problem,” said Vanessa Otero, CEO of Ad Fontes Media and creator of the Media Bias Chart. “They realize when there’s this flood of information that they have to sort through, and unfortunately, because there are so many news sources, the responsibility falls on folks to sort through them.”
Third-party media bias evaluators like Ad Fontes Media aim to help news consumers navigate the increasingly crowded and complex media terrain using a simple media bias chart.
Source: Ad Fontes.
While analyzing bias can also be inherently biased, Ad Fontes Media said it combats that by using a politically balanced group of analysts to determine where media organizations score on its chart. That means each piece of news is rated by analysts who identify as right-leaning, left-leaning and center.
Straight Arrow News spoke to Ad Fontes Media CEO Vanessa Otero about America’s media bias problem and how it’s affecting society.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How have you seen the media bias landscape change since you started analyzing this in 2016?
A: It’s a great question. It’s grown. There are just more and more and more news and information sources out there every day. Unfortunately, one way it hasn’t changed is that it’s still quite polarizing. When I started the Media Bias Chart in 2016, the impetus of it was really the fact that there were so many polarizing news sources and people were fighting over them. Unfortunately, that’s still the case, but there’s just more to navigate.
Q: Would you say there are more hyper-partisan options now or more options in the middle?
A: I think there’s more of both. There are a lot of news sources that are in the middle. Most of the news sources we rate tend to be less biased, but the ones that are on the far left and right are the loudest and they seem to get most of the attention.
So there’s really more of both. But because there are so many news sources to choose from, people have to be really intentional about seeking out things that are minimally biased and highly reliable.
Q: What does that tell us about Americans’ news consumption if the ones on the edges are getting more viewership and attention?
A: Look, folks are polarized. Every poll that you look at shows increasing and increasing polarization over the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. And not just polarization but what’s called affective polarization: the kind where it makes you dislike, distrust, or even hate folks on the other side.
That, I think, is really damaging and dangerous. When you’re not assuming the folks on the other side have good intentions; when you’re just assuming that they disagree with you because they’re stupid or evil or both, it’s really hard to come to any kind of consensus.
But things that you agree with tend to give you this confirmation bias. We’re programmed to like things that we already agree with. So what it tells you about Americans is that we can fall into those traps really easily.
It’s not hopeless, though. We can do something about it. We can recognize that something that we’re strongly agreeing with is just feeding our confirmation bias; that maybe that’s not the most effective way to make decisions or live your life. If politics is dividing your family and your friends, you’re not able to have conversations with folks, it may be an indication that you’re focusing on very polarizing news sources.
Q: This is going to be a hard question to answer. It’s sort of a ‘chicken versus the egg’ argument. Do you think that more media bias is increasing political division or do you think it’s the other way around?
A: Great question. The causes of polarization are many. There are constitutional causes because you can have politicians that drive polarization. But the media is a big part of it.
There are many stakeholders in our democracy – the citizenry, politicians, the media – and each influences each other in a push-and-pull kind of way.
One thing we’ve seen since the advent of cable news is the participation of politicians in media. How often do you look at a cable news show and politicians are on the cable news show? This happens all night, every night, every channel.
So politicians are part of the media and politicians, just like every other citizen, are susceptible to confirmation bias; to being wrapped up in their own side’s stuff and not being able to filter out highly reliable versus low-reliable information.
I don’t know if you notice, but there are some politicians that are not very good at telling what’s true in the news and they participate in the extreme bias of the news. So I think it’s really a combination of both where they feed off of each other.
Q: CNN says it’s unbiased. Fox dropped the ‘Fair and Balanced’ slogan but says it’s the most trusted. What does your analysis say?
A: It’s funny, what you say as a slogan and what you actually do can be different things. Also, how people perceive you can be really different things.
One of the most common ways of measuring media bias is consumer opinion polling: asking people, ‘How much do you trust Fox or CNN or MSNBC?’ And really, the answer to that question tells you so much more about the person and their politics than it does about the news source.
The way we go about it is by analyzing the content, which is hard to do. It’s a little bit easier to poll a bunch of folks and say, ‘What do you think about this?’ But the content itself has the answers.
You can look at the headlines, the graphics and each individual sentence. You can see how they’re expressed as fact, analysis and opinion, and you can fact-check the claims that are in there. You can see if they advocate for left or right political positions. You can see how they refer to political issues or opponents. So you can actually tell from looking at the content.
What our data shows is that Fox is right-leaning, CNN is left-leaning, and MSNBC is left-leaning, a little bit more so than CNN. And they have varying levels of reliability. What’s really fascinating is that internet content – like CNN.com, FoxNews.com, or MSNBC.com – tends to be less biased and more reliable than their TV counterparts, which have a lot of primetime opinion programming. And opinion programming really isn’t news.
Q: It is our belief that Americans are hungry for unbiased news. That is why Straight Arrow News is here. How is Straight Arrow News doing in that mission, according to your analysis?
A: Really well. I think Straight Arrow News is correct in the assumption that people are looking for unbiased news. Of course, everyone has some bias, right? It’s really hard to be unbiased. But you can mitigate your bias as best you can by trying, by showing balance and by describing things as straightforwardly as possible.
We’ve seen so many Americans say, ‘Yes, we want unbiased news. Can I just go turn something on where I’m not being told what to think? Or I’m just getting the facts?’ People say that all the time. It’s one of the reasons you see this level of trust declining in those opinion polls. People don’t trust news when it’s more full of opinion and analysis than actual fact reporting.
Straight Arrow News is right in the middle for bias on our chart. That middle section is labeled minimal or balanced bias. And it’s rated as highly reliable. That’s what we’re looking for in the media landscape. That’s what we want. We want to promote the work of good journalists who are bringing folks facts that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to find on their own.
Q: In the history of Google search trends, the search for unbiased news sources was never higher than in November 2020. What does that tell us about what Americans are looking for as they go to the polls?
A: So much. We actually did some studies around social media and monitoring the spread of biased and unreliable information before, during and after the November 2020 election. There was a marked increase in misinformation and polarizing content being shared across the board.
People have a need and desire to be well-informed. They don’t want to feel lost. You don’t want to go around not knowing what’s true. It’s very disorienting. It’s very unsettling.
What that tells me is that Americans recognize the problem. Americans are smart. They realize when there’s this flood of information that they have to sort through and unfortunately, because there are so many news sources, the responsibility falls on folks to sort through them.
That’s why we exist because no one has time to sort through tens of thousands of information sources. So we’re a reference point. Ultimately, people should make the determinations for themselves and learn to recognize reliability and bias. But when there are just so many out there, it’s really helpful to have a guidepost. And so we just hope we can be that for folks.
