Americans’ trust in the news media grew 8 percentage points this year, compared to 4 percentage points in 2024, according to a recent survey by the data firm YouGov.
But news consumption remains as politically divided as the country. With few exceptions such as financial news sources like Forbes and The Economist, or The Weather Channel, Democrats and Republicans don’t have faith in the same outlets.
In its poll, YouGov asked people about the trustworthiness of 52 news sources.
Democrats are much more inclined to believe the news than Republicans, but the latter’s faith increased 7 percentage points from last year.
At 85%, a greater share of Democrats trusted 44 of the 52 outlets. Only 40% of Republicans trusted 21 of the outlets more than distrusted them.
Democrats trust PBS, the BBC and NBC the most. Among Republicans, Fox News, Fox Business Channel and Newsmax rank as the top picks for news.
KPBS spoke recently to two local voters, whose news habits nearly match the poll.
“When I have the TV on at home, usually it's on Fox News,” said Republican voter Liliana Armenta. “I do follow Fox News online. I follow Real America's Voices. I follow Newsmax. And I like to listen to podcasts, so I follow Rumbo a lot as well.”
Independent voter Meri Jo Petrivelli, who described herself as leaning Democratic, said she watches PBS, NBC Nightly News and CNN. She reads The New York Times, The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Diego Union-Tribune daily.
“I also subscribe to Voice of San Diego and Axios locally and read their morning reports,” Petrivelli said. “I subscribe to the Bulwark. My radio, not to plug you all or anything, is permanently set to KPBS.”
YouGov’s survey is the latest in a series of polls on public confidence in the media as well as people’s news habits.
In February, Gallup found that just 31% of Americans have faith in the mass media. It’s the lowest point in more than five decades.
Point Loma Nazarene University’s journalism program director Dean Nelson said it’s crucial for a society to agree on a common set of facts. He added that when entities such as Newsmax, One America News or Fox News willfully challenge facts, “it’s a problem.” He pushes his students to view the news with deep curiosity.
“You're on a quest, “ Nelson said. “You're trying to find something. But if you live in a world of statements, where this is the beginning, this is the end. The root of the word statement is state. You're in a state, and you're not in any motion at all.”
And he advocates for people to consume the news with a dose of skepticism.
“That takes an active, participatory action on the part of the consumer to maybe say, 'I wonder if that's true. And so then I'll maybe check another source or wait a day,’” Nelson said.
Pew Research Center released its findings on people’s news consumption in September of last year. The poll showed that a majority of adults in the United States — 57% — most of the time get news from a device. 29% of them go to actual news websites, followed by social media, where the most popular platforms are Facebook, YouTube then Instagram. Those news consumers tend to be younger.
Elisa Shearer, a Pew senior researcher, said it’s common for people getting their news through social media to do so by chance.
“It can be a very kind of accidental news experience as opposed to turning on the evening news or opening up a newspaper or even going to a news website,” Shearer said. “We find in a lot of our research that people say things like, ‘Oh, I just came across news, I don't seek it.’”
