Poll: 72 percent say traditional outlets ‘report news they know to be fake, false, or purposely misleading’

Seventy-two percent of Americans believe “traditional major news sources report news they know to be fake, false, or purposely misleading,” according to a new poll from Axios and SurveyMonkey released on Thursday.

The poll of nearly 4,000 adults shows that 92 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents “say that traditional news outlets knowingly report false or misleading stories at least sometimes,” a finding in line with other recent polls conducted by Pew Research and Gallup.

{mosads}It found the sentiment extends to those who identify as independents and Democrats, with 79 percent of independents also saying traditional outlets knowingly report false or misleading stories at least sometimes. Democrats agree by a slight majority of 53 percent.

The poll also found that almost two-thirds of those polled say fake news “is usually reported because people have an agenda.” About one-third of those polled say false information is reported because of “poor fact-checking” or laziness.

A very small percentage, or three percent, say fake news “makes headlines by accident.”

Fifty-seven percent of Democrats say they use Google searches to verify facts. Less than half of Republicans, or 48 percent, do the same.

In terms of using fact-checking websites such as FactCheck.org or Snopes.com, 43 percent of Democrats say they utilize such resources, while only 30 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of independents do the same.

Trust in media was once at 74 percent in 1976 in the post-Watergate reporting era, according to Gallup.

That number dropped to 32 percent in 2016, the last time Gallup polled on the question. Just 14 percent of Republicans said they trusted the media in that poll.

President Trump has helped fuel distrust in the media even more since announcing his candidacy, often attacking the media as “fake news” and arguing that sources used in some stories “don’t exist.”

Remember, don’t believe “sources said” by the VERY dishonest media. If they don’t name the sources, the sources don’t exist.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2016

….it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2017

The Fake News is going crazy making up false stories and using only unnamed sources (who don’t exist). They are totally unhinged, and the great success of this Administration is making them do and say things that even they can’t believe they are saying. Truly bad people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2018