He began his presidency by declaring war on the U.S. news media and spent the first
three years of his time in office labeling America's top journalists "fake news," and the President's tactics appear to have worked, at least as far as Republican voters are concerned. That's the
finding of an in depth report released today by the Pew Research Center.
The analysis, which explored more than 50 of its American Trends Panel Surveys to tease out what factors drive trust in
the news media, found that nearly a third (31%) of Republicans or Republican-leaning independent voters believe journalists have "low ethical standards," while only 5% of Democrats feel that
way.
"The link between the public’s approval of Trump and views of the news media is clear in evaluations of journalists’ ethics," the authors of Pew's "Trusting the News Media in the Trump Era" write, adding, "Trump’s strongest approvers, though, express
even greater suspicion: 40% of Republicans who strongly approve of Trump’s job performance say journalists’ ethics are that low. That is true of far fewer Republicans who only
somewhat approve of Trump or disapprove of him: 17% and 12%, respectively.1 Overall, this relationship between support for Trump and depressed trust in the news media persists over a range of
attitudes. And, taken together, Republicans who are most approving of Trump and Democrats who are least approving of him stand far apart from each other."
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