The percentage of Americans who trust the press — including television, radio, and newspapers — has fallen to a historic low, new Gallup polling indicates.

With 36 percent of Americans saying they don’t trust the press to report the news “fully, accurately, and fairly” compared to only 31 percent who trust it a fair amount or a great deal, those who distrust the news outnumber those who trust it for the third year in a row.

In addition to the 36 percent of American adults who said they have no trust in the press, an additional 33 percent said they had “not very much” confidence in it. Trust has plummeted deeply since Gallup first started tracking the issue in the 1970s, when trust in news institutions was ranging from 68 percent to 72 percent. 

Confidence levels had a slight rebound after the 2016 election but spiraled downwards in 2019 and in the years since. The polling also indicates a deep difference in trust levels along partisan lines — 54 percent of Democrats have at least a fair amount of trust in the news, compared to 27 percent of independents and a mere 12 percent of Republicans. 

The press is also the “least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process,” Gallup says. A majority of Americans, or 67 percent, expressed trust in their own local governments to handle local issues, and 55 percent trust their state governments to handle state problems. When it comes to making decisions about issues facing the country, 54 percent of American adults trust the “American people as a whole.” 

Trust in the federal government to handle international and domestic issues also outweighs trust in the press, and more Americans trust the judicial branch and the executive branch than they trust news institutions, the polling showed.

Trust in Congress is also low overall — but still slightly above the press — with only 34 percent of Americans trusting it a fair amount or great deal. 

Even though trust in the other major institutions is greater than trust in the press, Gallup notes that each individual reading “is below its average dating back to 1972,” with several near record-low, including the “the federal government’s handling of domestic and international problems, the executive and judicial branches, and the American people as a whole.”

The “bottom line,” Gallup notes, is that America is suffering from a “crisis in confidence” in these institutions — especially in the press, the federal government, and its three branches.