Trust in the media has inched up over President Trump’s first six months, despite his turbulent relationship with the press, a new poll found.
A July poll by Issues & Insights and TIPP found that 41% of respondents said they either had a lot of trust or quite a bit of trust in traditional media like The Washington Post, The New York Times, National Public Radio and CBS News. Some 51% said they had either little trust or no trust at all, and 8% weren’t sure.
The media trust while covering Mr. Trump, compared with the last six months of former President Joe Biden’s term and reelection campaign, represents “a dramatically improved picture for media trust over the past year,” I&I and TIPP say.
From February to July 2024, the TIPP Traditional Media Index, which ranges from 0 to 100, averaged 38.6 points for trust in the media, with a fluctuation between a high of 41.5 and a low of 36.7.
In Mr. Trump’s first six months, the average rose to 44.7 points, a roughly 16% jump.
When asked about alternative news media like the New York Post, The Washington Times and Newsmax, 36% said they either had quite a lot of trust or quite a bit of trust, while 55% said they had little or no trust, and 9% were unsure.
A similar pattern was seen with the Alternative Media Index. It averaged 34.5 points between February and July 2024, but averaged 41.3 during Mr. Trump’s first six months.
Republicans are where both indexes saw the trust rise the most, jumping from 25.2 to 41.1 points in the Traditional Media Index and from 31.5 to 45.4 points in the Alternative Media Index.
Independents also made gains in the indexes, with a jump from 32.6 to 36.2 points in the Traditional Media Index and 28.5 to 33.1 points in the Alternative Media Index.
Democrats lost trust in the Traditional Media Index, falling from 56.8 to 55.4 points, but pretty much stayed the same in the Alternative Media Index.
The White House is known to call out the media when it feels outlets misreported something the president did. The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal are just two outlets that have faced consequences for reporting on the Gulf of America and Mr. Trump’s ties to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, respectively.
AP went to court to fight for the reinstatement of its reporters into the president’s press pool. The Journal was knocked from the press pool for Mr. Trump’s trip to Scotland.
During press briefings, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt often mentions good and bad reporting done by the media sitting in the briefing room.
Mr. Trump from the beginning has railed against the “radical left” media for stories that outlets have done on him.
He ended federal funding for NPR and PBS. He won a multimillion-dollar settlement with Paramount Global over CBS’ “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, a financial hit that reportedly spurred the end of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”
The online national poll surveyed 1,421 adults from June 25-27.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.