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A majority of Americans (57%) express low confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis from the Pew-Knight Initiative. This includes 40% who say they have not too much confidence and 17% who say they have none at all. By comparison, 43% of adults say they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in journalists.
| group | A great deal of confidence | A fair amount of confidence | Not too much confidence | No confidence at all | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All U.S. adults | all | 6% | 37% | 40% | 17% |
| Rep/Lean Rep | party | 2% | 22% | 47% | 28% |
| Dem/Lean Dem | party | 9% | 52% | 32% | 6% |
In our past surveys, the public has expressed less confidence in journalists than in several other institutions and professions, such as the military, scientists and police officers. Other survey questions have also found relatively low trust in news organizations.
Related: Americans’ Complicated Relationship With News
We continue to find large differences by political party on this topic. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (61%) are more than twice as likely as Republicans and GOP leaners (25%) to say they have confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public.
| Date | All U.S. adults | Rep/Lean Rep | Dem/Lean Dem |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-04-26 | 48% | 23% | 70% |
| 2020-11-29 | 45% | 17% | 71% |
| 2022-09-18 | 44% | 23% | 64% |
| 2023-10-01 | 42% | 21% | 61% |
| 2024-10-27 | 45% | 23% | 66% |
| 2025-04-20 | 45% | 27% | 62% |
| 2025-10-01 | 47% | 27% | 69% |
| 2025-12-01 | 43% | 25% | 61% |
Since we first started asking this question in 2020, Democrats have consistently been more likely than Republicans to express confidence in journalists. This party gap has persisted over time, though it has decreased since 2020.
This pattern mirrors past Center findings that Democrats are both more trusting of the information they get from national and local news organizations and more likely than Republicans to use and trust many major news sources.
As part of the new survey, we also conducted focus groups with 45 Americans. Regardless of political party, some of the participants in these focus groups described this broader loss of confidence in the news industry, saying they no longer know who or what to trust. For example, a Democratic woman in her 50s said, “We don’t have any really good journalists right now that are doing accurate news.”
Some participants said they now curate their news more carefully, whether by verifying what they come across or by narrowing their consumption to a small set of trusted sources.
“It used to be, as a kid, I could just turn on the news on TV and it’s like everything is believable and credible,” a Republican woman in her 40s said. “But in a world where everything has become much more biased, and there’s unreliable and biased sources, you have to kind of take things with a grain of salt and look at where is it coming from, and who’s the source, and what is their main goal? And you just have to put a filter on it.”
Note: Former Research Analyst Jacob Liedke contributed to this analysis. Here are the survey questions used for this analysis, the detailed responses and the methodology.
