At a glance
Media bias is one of the clearest examples of a public trust problem that has stayed stubbornly visible for decades.
The numbers below show two things at once: many Americans think news organizations favor one side, and confidence in mass media has settled near a low point.
| Measure | Statistic | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Say news organizations tend to favor one side, Sep. 2024 | 77% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| Say news organizations deal fairly with all sides, Sep. 2024 | 22% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| Great deal or fair amount of confidence in mass media, Oct. 2024 | 31% | Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low |
| Say they trust most news most of the time, 47 markets | 40% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Say bias, spin, or agendas are the main reason they do not trust the news | 67% | Reuters Institute, Bias, Bullshit and Lies |
The core pattern is stable: suspicion of bias remains high, and trust remains low.
Contents
- What the latest U.S. numbers say
- How the trend has changed over time
- What trust looks like in practice
- What journalists say about bias and objectivity
- How people judged the 2024 election coverage
- How the U.S. compares internationally
- Why transparency keeps showing up
- What the long view suggests
What the latest U.S. numbers say
The most recent U.S. reading in the dataset comes from Pew Research Center’s September 2024 media watchdog topline.
In that survey, 77% of Americans said news organizations tend to favor one side on political and social issues, while 22% said news organizations deal fairly with all sides (Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline).
That split matters because it is not a narrow disagreement. It is a strong majority saying bias is the default expectation.
The same dataset also shows that this view is not new. The 77% figure is close to prior highs in the historical series, even if the exact wording and survey timing vary by year (Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline).
A quick read on the gap
A useful way to read the headline figures is to compare the share seeing bias with the share seeing fairness:
- 77% said news organizations tend to favor one side.
- 22% said they deal fairly with all sides.
- The gap is 55 percentage points.
That is not simply a divided electorate reacting to a single news cycle. It is a broad credibility problem that reaches across the media environment.
How the trend has changed over time
The Pew historical series in the dataset makes the longest-running point very clear: concern about bias has been common for decades.
| Year or period | Tend to favor one side | Deal fairly with all sides | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 1992 | 63% | 31% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| Feb. 1997 | 67% | 27% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| June 2005 | 72% | 21% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| July 2007 | 66% | 26% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| July 2009 | 74% | 18% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| July 2011 | 77% | 16% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
| Sept. 2024 | 77% | 22% | Pew Research Center, 2024 media watchdog topline |
Three practical takeaways stand out:
- The belief that news organizations favor one side has never disappeared from the data.
- The fair-treatment share has stayed materially lower than the bias share in every point listed here.
- The 2024 result is not an outlier; it sits within a long historical pattern.
Another way to say it: the public has not moved from trust to distrust in a single jump. It has been living with a persistent suspicion that news judgment is shaped by viewpoint.
What trust looks like in practice
Gallup’s October 2024 numbers help separate a broad bias perception from overall confidence in media institutions.
Only 31% of Americans said they had a great deal or fair amount of confidence in mass media in October 2024, down from 32% in 2023 and matching the 2016 low (Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low).
The rest of the distribution shows how little cushion remains around that figure:
- 36% said they had no trust at all.
- 33% said they had not very much trust.
- 31% said they had a great deal or fair amount of trust.
That means 69% fell on the low-trust side of the scale in October 2024 (Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low).
Party and age gaps in media trust
Gallup’s breakdown is especially useful because it shows that media trust is not evenly distributed.
| Group | Trust in mass media | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Democrats | 54% | Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low |
| Independents | 27% | Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low |
| Republicans | 12% | Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low |
| Age 65 and older | 43% | Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low |
| Under 50 | 26% | Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low |
The party spread is especially large:
- Democrats: 54%
- Independents: 27%
- Republicans: 12%
That is a 42-point gap between Democrats and Republicans (Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low).
The age split is also meaningful:
- 43% among adults age 65 and older.
- 26% among adults under 50.
That 17-point gap suggests that confidence in media is stronger among older Americans than younger ones, even though neither group is close to universal trust (Gallup, Americans’ Trust in Media Remains at Trend Low).
What journalists say about bias and objectivity
The public is not the only group wrestling with the issue. The dataset also includes a 2022 Pew Research Center journalist survey that shows how journalists think about these questions internally.
A large majority of journalists, 82%, said journalists should keep personal views out of reporting (Pew Research Center, 2022 journalist survey).
That position sounds straightforward, but the rest of the survey shows the operational tension around it.
- 55% said journalists are largely able to separate views from reporting.
- 43% said journalists are often unable to do so.
- 52% said it is not possible to report news that nearly everyone finds accurate.
- 47% said it is possible.
- 75% believed journalists can agree on the basic facts of issues and events on their beat, even if they report them differently.
These answers point to a distinction that is easy to miss in media debates:
- Agreement on basic facts does not necessarily produce public agreement on fairness.
- Even when journalists think factual consensus is possible, audiences may still experience coverage as slanted.
The survey also shows how perspective depends on the audience journalists serve.
| Journalist group | Largely able to separate views from reporting | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Audience leans right | 55% | Pew Research Center, 2022 journalist survey |
| Audience leans left | 52% | Pew Research Center, 2022 journalist survey |
| Politically mixed audiences | 58% | Pew Research Center, 2022 journalist survey |
Those figures are not dramatically different, which suggests the professional belief in separation exists across audience environments, even if the public does not always reward it with trust.
How people judged the 2024 election coverage
The 2024 election coverage numbers add a more event-specific angle to the broader trust picture.
Pew Research Center found that 77% of Americans said the media did very or somewhat well covering the 2024 presidential election (Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report).
That headline is notable because it sits alongside persistent distrust. People can rate a cycle of coverage positively while still believing news organizations generally lean one way.
Evaluation of election coverage
| Measure | Share | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Media did very or somewhat well covering the 2024 presidential election | 77% | Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report |
| Republicans saying media did well | 39% | Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report |
| Democrats saying media did well | 77% | Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report |
| Go-to election-news sources covered the election very well | 27% | Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report |
| Go-to election-news sources covered the election somewhat well | 54% | Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report |
| Not too well | 15% | Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report |
| Not at all well | 3% | Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report |
The partisan split is still visible:
- 77% of Democrats said the media did well covering the election.
- 39% of Republicans said the same.
That 38-point gap is one of the clearest reminders in the data that evaluations of coverage are filtered through politics as much as through journalism standards (Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report).
The same report shows the practical challenge of finding reliable information:
- 39% of Republicans said it had been difficult to find reliable 2024 election information.
- 18% of Democrats said the same.
- 62% of liberal Democrats said finding reliable information had been easy.
- 44% of conservative or moderate Democrats said it had been easy.
- 42% of conservative Republicans said it was difficult, versus 35% of moderate or liberal Republicans.
So even inside partisan groups, the experience of information quality is uneven.
Age also mattered for Republicans
Among Republicans, age shaped how coverage was judged:
- 51% of Republicans ages 18 to 29 said the media covered the 2024 election very or somewhat well.
- 32% of Republicans ages 50 to 64 said the same.
- 35% of Republicans age 65 and older said the same.
The older Republican groups were still more approving than many critics might expect, but the age gradient suggests that experience with media may differ by generation as well as ideology (Pew Research Center, 2024 election news report).
How the U.S. compares internationally
Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2024 broadens the picture beyond the United States.
Across 47 markets, 40% said they trust most news most of the time, unchanged from the prior year (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024).
That is useful context because it shows the U.S. is not operating inside an isolated trust crisis. Media trust is a global challenge.
Selected country comparisons
| Country or market | Trust in news | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Finland | 69% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Norway | 61% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| United States | 50% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Sweden | 57% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Australia | 45% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Germany | 45% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| France | 40% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Japan | 42% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| United Kingdom | 35% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Greece | 23% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
| Hungary | 23% | Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024 |
The U.S. figure in this dataset is 50%, which places it above many countries but well below the highest-trust cases (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024).
The same report also says 17% across 20 richer countries paid for any online news in the last year (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024).
Among the countries listed in the dataset:
- Norway: 40%
- Sweden: 31%
- United States: 22%
- Australia: 21%
- Germany: 13%
- France: 11%
- Japan: 9%
- United Kingdom: 8%
That comparison is useful because willingness to pay is often a proxy for perceived value and trust.
Why transparency keeps showing up
The Reuters Institute data gives one of the cleanest explanations for how trust is built or lost.
The report identified four primary trust factors across markets: high standards, transparency, lack of bias, and fairness in media representation (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024).
That list is worth reading carefully. It suggests that trust is not just about whether an outlet is correct. It is also about whether the audience can see how the outlet works.
Reuters Institute’s analysis adds a second layer:
- 84% of people who already trust the news said transparency is important when deciding what outlets to trust.
- 68% of generally distrustful respondents said the same.
So transparency matters even when trust is already present, and it matters almost as much when trust is missing (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024).
The report also found that 20% of respondents said they do not know where they stand in conventional political terms, and their trust in news is much lower (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024).
It also said more than one-third of respondents were not interested in politics, which the report links to weaker news trust (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2024).
That makes the issue larger than partisan identity alone. News trust is tied to political orientation, interest in politics, and whether the audience feels it can observe the reporting process.
What the long view suggests
The oldest items in the dataset show that the public’s distrust is not a recent invention.
A 2004 Pew result found that 45% of Americans said the news media are pretty much the same to them, while 71% of conservative Republicans and 66% of liberal Democrats said there are a few news sources they trust more than others (Pew Research Center, 2004 attitudes toward the news).
That result hints at something enduring: many people do not treat the news as a single uniform institution. They sort outlets, trust some more than others, and assume differences in viewpoint.
A 2011 Pew release pushed the same point further:
- 77% said the press as a whole tends to favor one side.
- 49% said the news sources they rely on most tend to favor one side.
- 45% said their choice sources treat all sides fairly.
That split is important because it suggests people can distrust “the media” in general while still relying on specific sources they see as more dependable (Pew Research Center, 2011 media attitudes release).
One more older Pew figure reinforces the pattern. In 2014, 19% of web-using U.S. adults said they get at least some news from a source they distrust, and that share was higher among consistently conservative and mostly conservative respondents than among consistently liberal and mostly liberal respondents (Pew Research Center, 2014 media polarization report).
That is a practical reminder that distrust does not always mean disengagement. People often keep using the sources they doubt, especially when those sources are central to their political information flow.
The overall picture from the dataset is therefore fairly consistent:
- Americans have long believed news organizations favor one side.
- Confidence in mass media remains low.
- Journalists themselves broadly endorse objectivity, but they also recognize the difficulty of eliminating viewpoint from reporting.
- Trust rises when people think outlets are transparent, fair, and visibly disciplined about standards.
The numbers do not point to a single fix, but they do point to a stable diagnosis: media bias is not just a media problem, it is a trust architecture problem.