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.
American News Pathways 2020 Project
How the public navigated news in 2020
Pew Research Center’s yearlong initiative focusing on how Americans’ news habits and attitudes related to what they heard, perceived and knew about the 2020 U.S. presidential election and COVID-19. MORE >
Republicans who relied on Trump for news more concerned than other Republicans about election fraud
In studying voters’ views of election fraud, we found these views varied by whether people got their news from the Trump campaign.
Explore our 2020 data tool
About half say they have seen at least some made-up news about the virus; 29% think it was created in a lab.
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American News Pathways 2020 Project
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U.S. Public Sees Multiple Threats From the Coronavirus – and Concerns Are Growing
Majorities express confidence in how the CDC and state and local officials are responding to the outbreak.
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Black and white Democrats differ in their media diets, assessments of primaries
There are notable differences between white and black Democrats in news consumption habits and assessments of recent political events and figures in the news.
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American News Pathways Methodology
Data in the American News Pathways project is drawn from The American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults. Read for more information about this survey’s methodology.
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5 key findings from our latest Election News Pathways survey, from impeachment to the Democratic race
59% of Americans are following news about the 2020 candidates closely, but far fewer are following it very closely at this stage of the race.
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Democrats see Biden and Sanders as very different ideologically
There are differences among Democrats in perceptions of the front-runners’ political views by race and ethnicity, age, education and ideology.
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About one-fifth of Democrats and Republicans get political news in a kind of media bubble
In total, 20% of all Democrats get political news only from outlets with left-leaning audiences, while 18% of all Republicans do so only from outlets with right-leaning audiences.
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Most say journalists should be watchdogs, but views of how well they fill this role vary by party, media diet
Nearly three out of four U.S. adults say that, in general, it’s important for journalists to function as watchdogs over elected officials.
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Americans’ news fatigue isn’t going away – about two-thirds still feel worn out
66% of Americans feel worn out by the amount of news there is these days – a feeling that has persisted for several years now.
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Concern about influence of made-up news on the election is lowest among those paying the least attention
Concern is highest among people who follow political news most closely, older adults and those who display more knowledge about politics in general.
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