Media trust increase driven by Republicans: Gallup

Republicans drove an increase in Americans’ trust in the media, which jumped by 5 percent this year after hitting an all-time low in 2025, according to survey results published Tuesday.

In the new Gallup survey , 33 percent of respondents said they trusted mass media — including newspapers, television and radio — a “great deal” or “fair amount” when it comes to their ability to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

These new figures mark a rebound from 2025, where 28 percent of those polled — a new low in Gallup’s more than 50-year trend — expressed confidence in media outlets’ reporting. Republican respondents fueled this increase, with 22 percent expressing trust in the media, an 8 percent increase from the year prior.

Republicans’ trust in the media hasn’t passed 20 percent since 2018, and 22 percent is the highest the figure has ticked over the past 10 years.

Democrats’ evaluation moved in the opposite direction, with their trust hitting a historic low of 50 percent. Meanwhile, 31 percent of independents trust the media, a slight increase from 28 percent in 2025.

Out of the entire respondent pool, 33 percent of those surveyed stated they have “not very much” confidence in mass media, while an equal 33 percent have “none at all.”

Lydia Saad, Gallup’s director of U.S. social research, acknowledged in an analysis of this year’s results the party-line fracture surrounding media trust — but also emphasized that these ratings are historically weak overall.

“The partisan trends also reveal a somewhat different political environment toward the media in [President] Trump’s second term than in his first,” Saad wrote.

On Sept. 18, Trump banned three media outlets — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — from the White House. In a social media post announcing the ban, the president referred to CNN as “fake news” and called out MS NOW for changing its name from MSNBC, alleging the outlet had to rename itself due to “lack of viewership and credibility.”

He also railed against the $8 million government agencies pay for Politico Pro subscriptions, calling it “illegal and ridiculous.”

A federal judge swiftly reversed the ban on Sept. 24, mandating that the White House restore the three outlets’ press credentials. But the feud is waging on after the ruling, as the Trump administration barred CNN from traveling with the press pool on Air Force One over the weekend.

Gallup surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults between Sept. 1-17. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.