The death of public trust in the news

Trust in American newsrooms has fallen to historic lows. In 2025, only 32 percent of adults said they trusted the mass media a great deal or a fair amount, tying the lowest level ever recorded by Gallup. At the same time, 39 percent said they had no trust at all in the press. Gallup reported that in the 1970s nearly two-thirds of Americans expressed confidence that newspapers, radio, and television were fair and accurate. The erosion has been steady and striking.

The decline is not evenly distributed. Only 12 percent of Republicans now say they trust the media, compared with 54 percent of Democrats, Gallup found in its 2025 survey. Age also matters. Forty-three percent of Americans 65 and older report some trust in the media, compared with just 26 percent of adults under 50. The generational divide is as wide as the partisan one.

Consumption habits show how rapidly news has shifted. A 2025 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 86 percent of adults now get news on a digital device at least sometimes, and 56 percent do so often. Television still plays a role, with 64 percent watching for news at least occasionally, but the habit of daily TV news has weakened.

Social media is reshaping the landscape. Fifty-three percent of adults say they get news from social media at least sometimes, according to Pew, with Facebook and YouTube leading the field. Among younger adults, TikTok has become a significant source of news, with one in three Americans under 30 saying they regularly get updates there. Analysts warn this shift has weakened traditional filters for accuracy. “When you lose the gatekeepers, you open the floodgates to rumor, speculation, and falsehoods,” said Tom Rosenstiel, longtime press analyst and former executive director of the American Press Institute.

The rise of public individuals as information sources has accelerated the change. A Gallup and Knight Foundation study found that nearly nine in ten Americans follow at least one public figure for news or commentary, and 61 percent say they rely on those voices for current events. The trend blurs the line between professional journalism and personal influence. Katherine Maher, then CEO of NPR, underscored the problem in an interview cited by Columbia Journalism Review: “It’s indisputable that media right now has a trust problem. The rise of news influencers indicates that people want a relationship not with an institution but with an individual.”

Local news remains somewhat more trusted but less followed. In 2024, 74 percent of Americans said they had a lot or some trust in their local news organizations, according to an analysis by Nieman Lab. The Pew Research Center reported that 85 percent of adults said local outlets are important to their community, yet only 22 percent said they follow local news very closely, down from 37 percent in 2016. Margaret Sullivan, former media columnist for the Washington Post, warned in her book Ghosting the News that “local journalism is on life support in this country. And that has very real consequences for democracy, because if people don’t know what’s going on in their communities, they can’t act as citizens.”

Journalists themselves acknowledge the broader shift. A 2025 Pew Research Center study found that 49 percent of Americans believe journalists are losing influence in society, compared with only 15 percent who believe they are gaining influence. Fewer than half of adults, 45 percent, said they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in journalists to act in the public interest. NBC anchor Lester Holt told an audience at the Edward R. Murrow Awards in 2021: “The truth is not always pretty. It is rarely easy. But it is what we must pursue. And yet, many in the public no longer believe us when we say it.” His warning captured what many reporters now face: an audience skeptical not just of stories but of the motives behind them.

The consequences stretch beyond ratings and subscriptions. A democracy requires a shared set of facts to hold institutions accountable. As trust declines, facts fracture into partisan or personalized feeds, and citizens retreat into echo chambers that reinforce their existing beliefs. The risk is not just audience fragmentation but civic erosion. Communities without strong local news have lower voter turnout, weaker government oversight, and fewer shared touchpoints of information, according to multiple studies by the University of North Carolina’s Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media.

The death of trust in the news is not inevitable. Surveys suggest that when reporting is local, transparent, and accountable, people respond with more trust. The challenge for media organizations is whether they can adapt their models quickly enough to reconnect with audiences that have grown skeptical. Whether news outlets can rebuild those bridges, or whether audiences will continue to abandon traditional journalism in favor of influencers and partisan streams, will shape the nation’s information future.

By Alex Fernandez