One of the ironies of writing about attitudes toward the media in The Washington Post is you are almost necessarily creating a paradox for some readers. If I say new data from the national General Social Survey released this week indicates more than two-thirds of Republicans say they have “hardly any” confidence in the media, will those Republicans believe me? And if they do not, does that mean Republican confidence is actually stronger than the data suggest — meaning my analysis is more believable?
For those of you not navigating the rocky waters of distrusting reporting about distrust in reporting, I present to you the remarkable findings of that survey. Indeed, more than two-thirds of Republicans say they have little confidence in the media, a figure that has risen nearly 20 points since 2014. CONT.
Philip Bump, Washington Post