When it comes to honesty and ethics, TV and newspaper reporters rank with the likes of car salespeople, lawyers and advertising professionals, results of a new Gallup survey of U.S. adults reveal – and Americans’ opinion of them may actually be much worse than they say.
In a national survey, conducted December 2-18, 2024, Gallup asked respondents to “rate the honesty and ethical standards” of 23 professions. “TV reporter” was one of just three professions distrusted by a majority of Americans. Only 13%, or about one in eight, rate the trustworthiness of TV reporters as either “high” or “very high,” while more than four times as many (55%) think it’s “low” or “very low” (55%).
Similarly, nearly half (45%) of U.S. adults rate the honesty and ethics of newspaper reporters as either low or very low, while only about one in six (17%) give them a positive score.
“TV reporters, whose nine-point slide since the 2000s reflects the decline in Americans’ broader confidence in the news media,” Gallup reports. “Americans’ trust in newspaper reporters…has been consistently low over the years, with little change.”
Indeed, trust in mass media hit a record low for the third straight year in 2024, as Gallup’s annual survey on trust found that less than a third of Americans (31%) say they believe what they’re being told by the media, compared to 69% who say they don’t, including 36% who have no trust at all.
Perhaps even more troubling, a separate study suggests that a far smaller percent actually do trust today’s media.
Results of a national study of American adults released by the think tank Populace, with the help of Gradient and YouGov, suggests that distrust of the media is much greater than traditional polls have found. Less than a third of those who claim that “In general, I trust the media to tell me the truth” do so, the study finds:
“Americans are overstating their trust in the media. Whereas 24% of people publicly agree they trust the media to tell the truth, in private only 7% truly believe it.”
…
“Results from every generation reveal a double-digit gap between what people are willing to say publicly and what they privately think.”
Thus, while about one in four Americans claim they trust the media, in fact, only about one in 14 do have confidence in the news they’re being fed.