59% of Republicans Believe the Media Is ‘Fake News’

It is not only President Trump who believes the mainstream media is “fake news.” In fact, most of his fans agree, with a majority of Republicans saying that they have no trust in the mainstream media, according to recent Gallup polling.

The key takeaway: 59% of Republicans polled by Gallup in late 2024 responded “none at all” when asked if they have faith that the media reports the news “fully, accurately and fairly.” That slice has more than doubled in size since 2015 — the year President Trump first announced his candidacy for the 2016 election — when 27% of Republicans said they had no trust in the media.

Another 29% of Republicans answered that they have “not much” confidence in the media — bringing it to 88% of self-identified conservatives who have little or no trust in the media.

It is also worth noting how far apart Democrats and Republicans are on this issue; only 6% of Democrats told Gallup that they had no trust in the mass media to report stories accurately. That figure among Dems hit a high-point in 2015, when 16% said they had no trust in the media.

Gallup, which initially released its media survey results in October 2024, took a deeper dive into its results last week. The chart below shows how Republican have become increasingly disillusioned with the media in the past decade.

The same survey found American trust in the mainstream media is at an all-time low, with only 31% of citizens saying they trust the media to accurately report stories. In 1976, soon after the Watergate Scandal, 72% of Americans said they trusted the media.

As TheWrap has previously reported, the decline in trust in the mainstream media has led to more people turning to YouTube for news.

Gallup’s survey data is based on 1,007 respondents who were at least 18 years old.

The post 59% of Republicans Believe the Media Is ‘Fake News’ appeared first on TheWrap.