29% of Americans Trust Media

Reuters Institute has released its 10th Digital News Report. This report states only 29% of Americans trust the media out of 92,000 News Sources in 46 countries.

29% of Americans “Tend to Agree/Strongly Agree” with News Sources, while 44% of Americans “Tend to Disagree/Strongly Disagree”. 27% remains neutral on the issue, which either means they don’t watch the News, they watch multiple News Sources, or they are genuinely clueless about what is going on outside of their “safe-space bubble.” Denmark, seems to trust their News sources with 59% “Tend to Agree/Strongly Agree”. Denmark has a current population of approximately 5.8 million people. The United States of America has a current population of 332.4 million people. That is around 5631% more people. Nearly 90% of Denmark’s population is people of Danish descent.

America at 29% is the lowest proportion of trust in Media out of 46 other countries.

Increasing with age, it seems older generations consider news regarding political views more “fair” than younger generations. This could mean that people care less with age, or become more neutral on political viewpoints. Alternatively, it could mean the younger generation utilizes more technology, ultimately consuming and engaging in more News and Media than older generations with jobs, lives, families of their own, and other life demands.

72% of people agree to giving Equal time to “All Side” of subjective News stories. 17% of people believe the News themselves should be in charge of who has “a weaker argument” and provide them with the ‘correct information’. 11% have no opinion on anything in their lives including who controls the narrative of the country they live in.

54% of non-virologists believe they have seen “misinformation about COVID-19”. How many people read every National Institute of Health (NIH) documents, studied COVID-19, mRNA, and Gain-of-Function Research before determining this was “misinformation”?

43% of non-politicians believe they have seen “misinformation about politics”. How many people have read every executive order, press release, and piece of legislation before determining they had witnessed political “misinformation”?

20% of non-climatologists believe they have seen “misinformation about Climate Change”. How many people have read the scientific reports from the source and compared scientific data from each decade before determining this was “misinformation”?

29% rightfully have seen misinformation about celebrities, as many News Outlets gossip about celebrities to create engagement.

What defines “misinformation”? Is it another person’s opposing idea? Is “misinformation” held up against scientific data? Where is the [unsettled] conclusive data and scientific evidence on Climate Change? Where is the evidence of the origins of COVID-19? There are too many dependent variables that make it difficult to determine what is “misinformation” without having evidence. Information without evidence is considered a “theory” which is an “idea” and isn’t the same as “misinformation”. Whether you believe the charts is up to you.

In a study involving 12 countries [USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Australia, and Brazil] revealed 32% of countries say Facebook is the number one source they find their “News”. 8% use Facebook Messenger for News bringing Facebook’s total to 40%. 20% say Youtube is second, with videos being uploaded from all major sources. 11% use Instagram, and another 11% use Twitter. The remaining lower % use TikTok, Telegram, and Snapchat.

American Media has become unreliable in an age when it is absolutely essential to be informed. People suppress alternative information to push a single narrative viewpoint, destroying the majority of America’s trust in non-biased factual News. Most people do not have access to official documents and resources to make educated decisions, nor do they have the time to invest. It ends up coming down to what shows up on their Newsfeed that dictates their mindset. Opinion drives the divide in America, and modern media now has the ability to build a specific perspective for their consumers on every platform. History is one thing that can expose lies, and overtime as new evidence arises, consumers are realizing they can’t trust everything they read without looking at both sides.