Public Says Media Is More Biased

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Public Says Media Is More Biased

Special Report - September 16, 2009
Most Americans view the news media as generally inaccurate and politically biased, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. Released September 13, the survey, “Public Evaluation of the News Media: 1985-2009,” shows that the general public’s opinions of media accuracy are at their lowest levels in more than 20 years. The percentage of Americans who believe that the news media “generally gets the facts straight” has dropped from 55 percent in 1985 to 29 percent in 2009, while the percentage of Americans who say the news media is “often inaccurate” has nearly doubled from 34 percent in 1985 to 63 percent in 2009. Additionally, the survey found that in 2009, only 21 percent of Americans believe that the news media is willing to admit when it is wrong, compared to 70 percent who believe the news media tries to cover up its mistakes.

The Pew survey also found that the majority of Americans believe the media tends to favor one side (74 percent in 2009, up from 53 percent in 1985) and is politically biased (60 percent in 2009, up from 45 percent in 1985). In addition, 44 percent of Americans say that the news media is “too critical of America” in 2009, compared to 30 percent in 1985. Although the study notes that critical views of the news media tend to be higher among Republicans, it reports that, “much of the growth in negative attitudes toward the news media over the last two years is driven by increasingly unfavorable evaluations by Democrats.” For example, the Pew survey found that two-thirds of Democrats in the 2009 survey (or 67 percent) said that the media tends to favor one side over another, compared to 54 percent in 2007. The percentage of Democrats who say that news organizations are “too critical of America” has also increased 10 percentage points since 2007 to 33 percent in 2009.