America's Faith In Mainstream News Media Is At An All Time Low

For much of the decade, the news followed a familiar script that carried something close to institutional authority. The setting also more or less stayed the same: news arrived via anchors, in the form of papers on doorsteps, and millions of Americans assumed the information in front of them was broadly reliable. Today, that premise no longer holds, and that broad consensus around the media has since unraveled. 

According to Gallup, just 28% of Americans say they trust the mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly”. That's the lowest level recorded since the polling firm began tracking the question more than five decades ago. The decline becomes even clearer in historical context: trust once reached 72% in 1976, meaning the share of Americans expressing confidence in the press has effectively been cut in half over the past generation. 

Within the mainstream media people are carefully choosing who they believe, and that hasn’t been kind to outlets equally. Americans place their highest confidence in The Weather Channel at 49%, which peaks far ahead of the rest, while international broadcasters like the BBC (26%) and PBS (25%) also relatively retain reputation.  

Confidence in national media has faded, but it hasn’t disappeared entirely, it’s splintering across the nation. Americans are surrounded by more information than ever, yet increasingly uncertain about who to believe.   

56% of Americans according to Pew Research center say they trust information from national news organizations at least somewhat, down 11 percentage points since March 2025. It’s worth noting that figure is almost identical to the 50% who say they trust information from social media platforms, blurring the once-clear boundary between professional journalism and algorithm-driven feeds. The shift is increasingly personality-led too; for instance, podcasters like Joe Rogan reach about 22% of Americans with news or commentary in a single week, and the platform landscape itself has been reshaped by Elon Musk, whose takeover of X accelerated the transition of politically engaged audiences onto social feeds. 

It’s safe to surmise that national outlets are struggling to maintain credibility, but community ties maintain a credible foothold with 70% of Americans still endowing their confidence in local journalism for trusted information. The challenge for mainstream journalism, then, is not simply producing information in an era overflowing with it. It’s rebuilding the credibility that once made audiences believe it.