How Americans Navigated the News in 2020: A Tumultuous Year in Review
Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Americans inhabited different information environments, with wide gaps in how they viewed the election and COVID-19.
U.S. adults in this group are less likely to get the facts right about COVID-19 and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.
More than half of these social media news consumers say they have encountered made-up news about COVID-19.
The percentage who say journalists have exaggerated the risks of the outbreak has decreased notably in recent weeks.
A new analysis of open-ended responses to a survey of U.S. adults looks at the specific storylines or claims about COVID-19 that Americans said they were exposed to.
More than two-thirds of adults ages 65 or older said they were following news of the pandemic very closely.
People in this group are most likely to say the outbreak has been made too big of a deal and journalists have been exaggerating the risks.
Responses to cable news coverage and the pandemic vary notably among Americans who identify Fox News, MSNBC or CNN as their main source of political news.
Among black Americans, 72% say coverage has been good or excellent and 85% say Trump’s message has been completely or mostly wrong.
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