Republicans have become more likely since 2024 to trust information from news outlets, social media

Americans are now more likely to say they trust information from news organizations and social media sites than they were last year, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. These changes are largely driven by an increase in trust among Republicans, which has coincided with President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

How we did this

Pew Research Center has asked Americans about their levels of trust in information from national and local news organizations as well as social media sites since 2016 to better understand changes over time in the way people process news. This adds to our ongoing exploration of Americans’ views of the news media.

For this analysis, we surveyed 9,482 U.S. adults from March 10 to 16, 2025. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly. This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection. Interviews were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.

Around half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (53%) now say they have at least some trust in the information they get from national news organizations – a 13 percentage point increase from September 2024, when 40% of Republicans said the same. Between 2016 and 2024, trust among Republicans in the information they get from the national news media had declined overall.

Republicans’ trust in other information sources has increased as well. They are now more likely than last year to say they have at least some trust in the information that comes from local news outlets (75% now, vs. 66% – an increase of 9 points) and social media sites (45% vs. 37%, an 8-point increase). Republicans’ trust in social media has been increasing steadily since 2021, when 19% said they trust the information that comes from social media at least some.

Still, Republicans remain much less likely than Democrats to trust information from national news organizations. About eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (81%) now say they have at least some trust in information from national media outlets – a percentage that has been relatively stable over the past decade.

Democrats also remain somewhat more likely than Republicans to trust information from local news organizations (87% vs. 75%). But the reverse is true for social media sites: 45% of Republicans now say they have at least some trust in information from social media, compared with 38% of Democrats.

Among Republicans, conservatives are less likely to trust information from national news media

Though Republican trust in national news organizations has increased in a relatively short time, there are still ideological breaks within the party.

About half of Republicans who describe themselves as conservative (49%) express some or a lot of trust in the information they get from national news outlets. By comparison, a majority of moderate or liberal Republicans (61%) say they trust that information. Even so, trust in information from national news outlets has increased among Republicans regardless of ideology.

Among Democrats, large majorities of liberals (84%) and moderates or conservatives (79%) express trust in the information from national news outlets.

Trust in information rises slightly among most age groups

Across most age groups, Americans are now slightly more likely than last year to say they trust information from news organizations and social media.

Trust in national news organizations has increased most among the oldest Americans: Roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults ages 65 and older (74%) now say they trust the information that comes from national news organizations a lot or some, up from 61% in 2024. Trust in these organizations also has risen among Americans ages 50 to 64 (from 62% to 68%) and those 30 to 49 (from 57% to 66%). Six-in-ten adults under 30 trust information from national news organizations; 56% said the same in 2024.

As in the past, local news organizations are the most trusted news source across age groups – and this trust has risen slightly across all groups.

On the whole, Americans remain far less likely to trust information from social media sites than from national and local news organizations. But the difference is less pronounced among the youngest adults: 54% of Americans ages 18 to 29 have at least some trust in the information that comes from social media – just below their level of trust in national news organizations (60%). More young adults (76%) express trust in information from local news outlets.

There is a much bigger gap in trust among the oldest Americans: 28% of those ages 65 and older say they have at least some trust in information from social media, compared with 74% who trust national news organizations and 84% who trust local news outlets.

Note: This is an update of an analysis originally published on Oct. 27, 2022. Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology.