Nearly two-thirds of Americans have limited their consumption of political news, a new poll found.
A poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 65% of adults feel the need to limit how much political and government news they’re consuming due to feeling information overload, fatigue or related reasons.
Half of Americans, 51%, think the same regarding overseas conflicts, while 45% said the same about the economy and job market, and 42% said the same about climate change.
With 72% thinking that way, Democrats are more inclined to step away from political news. Some 63% of independents and 59% of Republicans said the same.
When it comes to overseas conflicts, Democrats and independents are more likely to say they want to limit news consumption on the topic, 54% and 52%, respectively. Some 47% of Republicans said the same.
Democrats, independents and Republicans somewhat agree on limiting media consumption on the economy and jobs, although Democrats at 46%, are more likely to say they want to limit consumption on the topic, while 43% of both independents and Republicans said the same.
In a switch, more Republicans, 48%, want to limit their consumption of news regarding climate change than Democrats and independents, 37% and 44% respectively.
Climate change is an issue that both matters more to left-leaning persons and that right-leaning news consumers are skeptical of on the merits and see media coverage as biased.
The poll also found that Americans think public figures should talk less about politics.
More Americans, 43%, find it acceptable for small businesses to speak out about political issues than think large companies (25%) professional athletes (26%) and celebrities (24%) should do the same.
Democrats are more likely to be accepting of large companies, professional athletes and celebrities speaking out about politics. Republicans are least likely to accept the three groups publicly sharing their political opinions, with over half of Republicans, 61% saying they somewhat/strongly disapprove of celebrities speaking out about political issues.
Again, this likely reflects the greater prevalence of left-leaning views among celebrities, especially in the entertainment world and in some (but not all) sports.
There are other signs Americans are tuning out politics.
According to Nielsen ratings, viewership of election night coverage was down over 25% from 2020. Roughly 42.3 million people tuned into news coverage of election night across 18 TV networks, while 56.9 million viewers watched in 2020.
Among news channels. MSNBC’s prime-time viewership saw a 54% drop in the weeks after the election, while CNN saw a 45% drop, Nielsen found. However, Fox News Channel, a favorite among President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters, saw an uptick in viewership by 13%.
Since the election, 72% of people watching any of the aforementioned three networks have tuned into Fox. Prior to Election Day, it was 53%.
The poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9 and has an error margin of 3.7 percentage points.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.