Only one in six trust newspapers and TV fares even worse, a new Gallup survey shows
One out of six Americans trust the newspapers and just one out of ten trust television, according to a recent Gallup survey. These are the lowest numbers since 1973 and 1993, respectively, with a drastic drop over the past year. There is also a widening gap in media trust between Democrats and the rest of the country.
Only 16% of respondents said that they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers, while 43% said they had “very little” trust in the press. This marks the first time that this number went below 20% since 1973, when Gallup began tracking data.
Things looked even worse for television, with only 11% – the lowest percentage on record since 1993 – having a great deal of confidence in TV news, compared to the 49% with “very little” trust.
Overall trust in both newspapers and TV news has dropped significantly since 2021, by five percentage points in both cases. While the trend has been uniform across all political persuasions, the poll revealed considerable gaps.
Despite a three-point loss, 35% of Democrats still trusted the newspapers, compared to just 5% of Republicans and 12% of independents. Democrats’ trust in TV news dropped by six percentage points to 20%, while the independents slid five points to just 8%. Meanwhile, Republicans actually began trusting TV news slightly more than in 2021, going from 6% to 8%.
The overall decline of trust in the media was part of a trend with most major American institutions, Gallup found.
“Americans are less confident in major US institutions than they were a year ago, with significant declines for 11 of the 16 institutions tested and no improvements for any,” Gallup said, commenting on the result of the survey. It involved 1,015 participants, polled between June 1-20.
Trust in the US Supreme Court slid by 11 points overall, going from 31% to 13% among the Democrats and from 40% to 25% among the independents in the aftermath of controversial rulings on abortion and gun rights, while gaining a mere 3% among the Republicans.
Confidence in the military was down by 10 points among Republicans and up by four points among the Democrats. Americans of all political stripes lost trust in the police, with a pronounced 11-point loss among Republicans.
Losing faith in the White House under President Joe Biden, however, seemed to unify the country. While Republican trust in the presidency was down ten points to just 2%, it collapsed among the independents (from 31% to just 18%) and was in free fall among Biden’s fellow Democrats, going from 69% in 2021 to just 51% today.
Kampala, Jul 18 (IPS) – Nearly a year after the Ugandan government suspended 54 NGOs for allegedly operating illegally and failing to file accounts, most civil society organisations (CSOs) remain shut.
Afghans caught up in the devastating earthquake that hit the country on June 22, killing more than 1,000 and injured over 6,000 people, are sharing their traumatic stories.
Read the full story, “From the Field: Afghan earthquake survivors look to rebuild their livesâ€, on globalissues.org →find more fun & mates at SoShow now !
Josep Borrell insisted the restrictions are not a mistake, after Hungarian PM Viktor Orban called them “miscalculated”
The EU’s top diplomat has hit back at those who criticize the Western sanctions slapped on Russia, saying on Monday that he does not believe them to be a mistake, and adding that the bloc will continue to stand by its policies.
“There is a big debate about ‘are the sanctions effective? Are the sanctions affecting us more than Russia?’ Some European leaders have been saying that the sanctions were an error, were a mistake. Well, I do not think they were a mistake, it is what we had to do and we will continue doing,” Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told reporters prior to the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels.
Borrell’s comments come after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban castigated EU sanctions against Russia on Friday, claiming they were “miscalculated” and could destroy Europe’s economy. He also noted that the sanctions have failed to destabilize Russia’s economy and haven’t forced Moscow to stop its military operation in Ukraine, instead causing massive damage to the EU’s economic stability.
The senior diplomat also declined to admit that oil prices soared due to the oil embargo that Brussels had imposed on Russia. He said the price of the fuel is now back at the same level as it was before February 24.
“So, how can someone say that it was the ban which has increased the price of oil?” Borrell argued.
Following the start of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine, Brent crude prices skyrocketed, reaching more than $120 per barrel in early March. Later, however, the prices went down, with Brent crude trading now at just above $100 per barrel, despite the EU’s decision on June 3 to impose an embargo on Russian oil.
Borrell said at the Council meeting on Monday that ministers would discuss a new sanctions package against Russia, as well as measures to better implement the restrictions already in place, and added that he had presented new proposals on the matter, including a ban on Russian gold.
news
