The media often attributes a portion of Donald Trump’s election to fake news — as in the vintage, original meaning of that term: Macedonian teens making bank on preposterous headlines; the Islamization of Texas, Pizza-shop child-sex conspiracies, etc. Such fabrication, commentators worried, reverberated around online echo chambers so resoundingly that […] Read more »
If Bipartisanship Marks 2018, Americans Would Be Happy
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell voted for bipartisanship at Camp David over the weekend, announcing that “We hope that 2018 will be a year of more bipartisan cooperation,” while President Donald Trump added, “We hope that we’re going to be able to work out an arrangement with the Democrats.” This […] Read more »
‘Fake News’: Wide Reach but Little Impact, Study Suggests
Fake news evolved from seedy internet sideshow to serious electoral threat so quickly that behavioral scientists had little time to answer basic questions about it, like who was reading what, how much real news they also consumed and whether targeted fact-checking efforts ever hit a target. … But now the […] Read more »
Polls show Americans distrust the media. But talk to them, and it’s a very different story.
… I turned down invitations to speak in Istanbul, Moscow and even Paris in 2017, and instead visited Arizona, Alabama, Wisconsin, Indiana and small-town Pennsylvania. And for a deeper look, I spent six weeks this past summer working from someplace other than my perch in the newsroom in downtown Washington: […] Read more »
The American Public in 2017: What We Learned
As it has for more than 80 years, Gallup continued in 2017 to measure and monitor Americans’ views on their government, political leaders, public policy, the economy and their own lives. The following are Gallup editors’ picks for the most important trends and discoveries reported each month this year. CONT. […] Read more »
Nurses Keep Healthy Lead as Most Honest, Ethical Profession
For the 16th consecutive year, Americans’ ratings of the honesty and ethical standards of 22 occupations finds nurses at the top of the list. More than eight in 10 (82%) Americans describe nurses’ ethics as “very high” or “high.” In contrast, about six in 10 Americans rate members of Congress […] Read more »