Polls show U.S. trust in news media rising
Pew and Gallup data released this week indicate that confidence in both national and local journalism has increased since 2025, with a notable shift among Republican voters.
By Amir Navarro ·
Public confidence in American news media has risen since 2025, according to new polling data released last week.
Pew Research Center found that 62% of U.S. adults now have some or a lot of trust in national news outlets. This figure is up from 56% in September 2025, which had marked the lowest point in the organization's decade of tracking this metric.
Trust in local news organizations is even higher. Pew reported that 75% of adults trusted local outlets in September, an increase from 70% a year earlier. A separate survey by NORC at the University of Chicago, conducted with the Alliance for Trust in Media and the Medill Local News Initiative, also identified local news as the most trusted source. That poll found 64% of adults trust local outlets some, quite a bit, or a great deal.
The most pronounced change occurred among Republicans. In June 2021, only 35% of Republicans trusted the nation's largest news organizations. By September, that figure had reached 50%, according to Pew. Gallup data showed a similar trend in confidence in mass media, which rose to 22% among Republicans in September. This was more than double the 8% recorded a year earlier.
Eric Schurenberg, who founded the Alliance for Trust in Media, suggested that industry practices may be contributing to the shift. He noted that journalists have become more sensitive to behaviors that lead to negative public conclusions. Schurenberg cited an experiment with the Texas Tribune where rural readers were given a tool to send messages directly to newsroom leaders. Participants in that group were less likely to claim journalists fabricate stories or apply political bias compared to a control group without the tool.
Schurenberg stated that transparency allows people to see professionals trying to get things right. He also observed that pre-election coverage by mainstream media appeared more measured than in previous cycles. He added that the decline in trust may be linked to a mistaken notion of how news is made, which is being corrected by the behavior of the political figure who promoted that idea.
Despite the gains, challenges remain. The NORC survey found that 77% of Republicans believe most journalists manipulate the news for political or commercial purposes. Overall, only 37% of adults believe most journalists report as accurately as possible. Gallup polling also showed that 89% of U.S. adults view government corruption as widespread, a factor that often drives interest in accountability journalism.
