According to “American Views: Trust, Media and Democracy,” a new report from Gallup and the Knight Foundation, the percentage of Americans who see a great deal of political bias in stories has nearly doubled since 1989.
Currently, 45 percent see “a great deal” of political bias, said the report, according to an analysis by the Nieman Lab.
Maybe worse, said Nieman: “Less than half of Americans said they could name an objective news source.”
When asked to name objective news sources, Fox won out at 24 percent followed by CNN at just 13 percent and NPR at 10 percent. Surprising low were MSNBC at 4 percent and the New York Times at just 3 percent.
The survey also asked users to pick their biggest problem with news coverage.
Topping the list at 73 percent was “the spread of inaccurate information on the internet.”
But that was followed at 69 percent by “owners of news outlets attempting to influence the ways stories are reported,” and two more references to bias.
As our Becket Adams reported, the survey said that the public believes that the journalism world has an important job. But, he added, “they also think we suck.”
From his story:
A whopping 84 percent said “news media have an critical or very important role to play in democracy, particularly in terms of informing the public.” But only a tiny 28 percent of those people think this industry is “supporting democracy.”