Gallup: Confidence in TV News Plummets

TV news
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WASHINGTON D.C.—Gallup’s annual survey of the confidence Americans have in their institutions has revealed a notable decline in the ratings for TV news, with only 11% of respondents expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in TV news. 

That is a five percentage point drop from 2021, when 16% expressed a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in TV news. 

Only Congress, with 7% confidence level, ranked lower among the institutions included in the Gallup poll. 

Most other U.S. institutions also saw drops in their confidence levels, with only organized labor not losing ground. It held steady at 28%. 

The poll showed that large tech companies ranked higher than TV news, with 26% expressing a great deal/quite a lot of confidence in them, and newspapers at 16%, a five percentage point drop from 2021. 

Small business had the highest level of confidence at 68%, followed by the military (64%) and police (45%). 

“This year's poll marks new lows in confidence for all three branches of the federal government -- the Supreme Court (25%), the presidency (23%) and Congress,” the pollster reported. “Five other institutions are at their lowest points in at least three decades of measurement, including the church or organized religion (31%), newspapers (16%), the criminal justice system (14%), big business (14%) and the police.”

The full results are available here.  

George Winslow

George Winslow is the senior content producer for TV Tech. He has written about the television, media and technology industries for nearly 30 years for such publications as Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and TV Tech. Over the years, he has edited a number of magazines, including Multichannel News International and World Screen, and moderated panels at such major industry events as NAB and MIP TV. He has published two books and dozens of encyclopedia articles on such subjects as the media, New York City history and economics.