News Habits & Media

Some 61% of U.S. adults say they follow COVID-19 news at both the national and local level equally, and 23% say they pay more attention to local news.

After three months of news and information, 64% of U.S. adults say the CDC mostly gets the facts about the outbreak right; 30% say the same about President Trump and his administration.

59% of Americans think news organizations do not understand people like them, while a minority – 37% – say they do feel understood.

In March 2020, about three-quarters (74%) of public Facebook posts about COVID-19 linked to news organizations, while just 1% linked to health and science sites.

Among black Americans, 72% say coverage has been good or excellent and 85% say Trump’s message has been completely or mostly wrong.

Black adults were much more likely than whites and somewhat more likely than Hispanic adults to frequently discuss the pandemic with others.

Amid the back-and-forth between Twitter and President Trump, here are facts about Americans’ attitudes toward social media companies.

Americans’ confidence in checking COVID-19 information aligns closely with their confidence in checking the accuracy of news stories broadly.

With Election Day six months away, 52% of Americans are paying fairly close or very close attention to news about the presidential candidates.

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.