Perceptions of Media Freedom

 Many posts have dealt with media problems.

Benedict Vigers at Gallup:

Even though most Americans continue to say the U.S. media have a lot of freedom, the percentage saying so has reached a new low this year. Slightly more than two in three Americans (69%) surveyed in May and June say there is a lot of media freedom in the U.S., down six percentage points from the previous low of 75% in 2025.

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For much of the past 15 years, perceptions of media freedom in the U.S. have outpaced those in other advanced economies. Across 38 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, median perceptions of media freedom have typically hovered around 80%, slightly lower than in the United States. Last year was the first time on record that the two were tied, both at 75%, despite similarities in 2023 and 2015, when the U.S. advantage was smaller. While Gallup has not yet completed data collection in all OECD countries this year, based on available data, the OECD median will be between 70% and 76%. This means that 2026 is the first year on record in which the U.S. ranks below the bloc's median.

Virtually every president has complained about the press. Trump says that reporters who irk him "should be arrested." Can't you see that his instincts are authoritarian? I know a lot of "anti-anti-Trumpers." Can't you see it, my friends? Doesn't it matter? https://t.co/qDyxSZxwfy

— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) October 6, 2026

Relationships with News

 Many posts have dealt with media problems.

 A release from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism:

Americans’ relationships with news are rapidly evolving, with teenagers and adults navigating a far more complex and fragmented media environment than ever before, according to a new national study from the Media Insight Project, a collaboration of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, the American Press Institute, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications and the Local News Network at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

Influencers and independent creators have emerged as a significant — and growing — source of news and information across all generations, especially among teens and younger adults. More than half of Americans ages 13 and older (57%) say they get news and information from influencers or independent creators at least sometimes. Among teenagers ages 13-17, that share rises to 81%, signaling a shift in how younger Americans engage with the information ecosystem. Despite concerns about misinformation, most say influencers do at least somewhat well at verifying facts, being transparent, and offering different viewpoints.

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Local news continues to play an essential role in community life and remains the most trusted sector of the news ecosystem, even as its financial future in smaller markets remains uncertain. Americans ages 13 and older view local news largely positively, with 76% getting information from local news sources often or sometimes. Across age groups, local news outlets rank highest for trust, including for verifying facts, covering important issues, and providing useful information. While teens 13-17 are more likely to encounter local information via social media or local independent creators, older adults are more likely to get their local news from traditional outlets like television and radio — pointing to a generational shift in how communities stay informed.

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The study also reveals widespread skepticism toward artificial intelligence as a source of news and information. Only about one in ten teens and adults say AI chatbots are more trustworthy than other sources, though two-thirds of Americans say they never use AI for news at all, suggesting low trust may be tied to limited exposure.

Beyond questions of trust and platforms, the findings underscore growing stress and fatigue in Americans’ relationship with news. While most feel confident in their ability to find reliable information, only 10% say news gives them a hopeful view of the world. Many actively avoid specific topics — particularly celebrity and political news. Rather than rejecting news altogether, people are managing their exposure by setting boundaries around their time online.

Politicians and social media companies are seen as the biggest sources of misinformation. Americans point to politicians (66%), social media companies (55%), and social media users (54%) as the primary drivers of misinformation. Clear partisan differences emerge here, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to assign responsibility to these actors (75% vs. 65% for politicians, 64% vs. 53% for social media companies). Local news outlets receive the least blame, which may help explain why trust in local journalism remains comparatively resilient even amid declining confidence in the media more broadly.

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Together, these findings suggest that journalism’s influence is no longer defined solely by legacy institutions, but by a comparative, choice-driven environment in which audiences weigh multiple sources against one another. The findings offer a nuanced portrait of the public navigating an increasingly crowded media landscape — one in which attention is fragmented but demand for reliable information remains strong.

Read the full report

Breaking News and Age

 From Pew:

Pink Slime in California

Many posts have dealt with misinformation, disinformation, and partisan pseudo-news sites.

Colin Lecher at CalMatters:

Earlier this year, as the political battle over Congressional redistricting brought California into the national spotlight, Facebook users were shown a curious series of ads.

The ads, from a straightforward-looking news site called the California Courier, often felt a lot like campaign commercials, linking to articles hammering Democrats in the state, including Gov. Gavin Newsom. Few punched in the other direction, toward Republicans. One said “California Democrats just rewrote their gerrymandering plan so voters will see their partisan map on the ballot this November.” Another called Proposition 50, which passed in November, “a scheme critics say is meant to undermine voter-approved protections and entrench one party rule in California.”

A reader who clicked through to the Courier’s website would find stories that largely align with a conservative view of the news, like a video of a child “riding a scooter through San Fran’s drug-ravaged streets,” or an anonymous piece that cites “confidential sources” cautioning against a “left-wing educator” running for a position with an Orange County school district.

What a reader would not find is any disclosure of the Courier’s ownership or funding, including what appear to be ties to a network of conservative organizations in California that, according to one researcher, scaled up a series of right-leaning news sites in three other states just ahead of the 2024 election.

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One of the named writers describes himself on social media as a “content creator” for the Lincoln Media Foundation, a conservative group, and links to Courier articles. Another shares a name with a Republican strategist based in Orange County, and a third lists a resume with conservative organizations in a short bio.

The Lincoln Media Foundation is tied to the Lincoln Club, a group based in Orange County that bills itself as “the oldest and largest conservative major donor organization in the state of California.” The club funnels anonymously-donated money to conservative candidates and causes.

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Researchers have taken to calling sites like those operated by Lincoln Media “pink slime” news, a name coined after a meat-industry additive. These sites don’t produce outright false news, like others, but they do not meet basic journalistic standards. That often means low-quality content and failing to disclose associations with outside organizations.

The sites generally aren’t designed to generate revenue, but to sway public opinion. The majority, according to researchers, lean toward a conservative agenda, and if the site’s stories gain traction on social media, they can travel widely.

 

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LA Reported

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

At The Wrap, Michael Calderone discusses a new initiative by Claremont McKenna College alumni David Dreier and Scott Woolley:

What has transpired in Los Angeles is part of the national crisis, as large city dailies once flush with advertising dollars have contracted, while many smaller papers and muckraking alt-weeklies have shuttered or shrunk. The number of news deserts, communities lacking reliable and timely information, climbed from 206 to 213 this year, according to Medill’s latest study, and this phenomenon isn’t relegated to large, rural expanses. In Los Angeles, a major metropolis where Hollywood and Big Tech are covered from all angles, there are communities, or news “islands,” as former Los Angeles Times executive editor Kevin Merida put it, “without coverage to serve them.”

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With nearly 10 million people living in Los Angeles County, there will always be stories untold. Even the Times at its most robust, with a newsroom of roughly 1,200 staffers two decades ago, couldn’t comprehensively cover every community at every moment. But the cutbacks at the Times, and elsewhere, have revealed significant gaps in coverage that journalists and civic leaders are hoping to fill through a variety of models, both for-and-non-profit.

 Forbes veteran Scott Woolley is co-founding and editing LA Reported, which launches on Jan. 8, and will utilize Substack as its primary distribution model. “Our plan is to publish a small number of deeply reported stories, written as lively and engaging narratives,” he told TheWrap. Woolley expects the outlet, which will rely on freelance writers, to cover housing, affordability, political malfeasance, transportation and public safety policy, as well as “some lighter pieces that don’t deal with such weighty topics but are just damn fun to read.”

Not Following the News

Many posts have dealt with news media 

Naomi Forman-Katz at Pew:

The share of Americans who say they follow the news all or most of the time has decreased since 2016, according to nearly a decade’s worth of Pew Research Center surveys. This shift comes amid changes in the platforms people use for news and declining trust in news organizations.

AP FightsVaccine Misinformation

Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.The greatest spreader of vaccine misinformation is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

From AP:

In response to perplexing White House declarations on autism, a collaborative AP team delivered essential, comprehensive reporting that pushed back on misinformation. Weeks of careful planning, including prep work on precise wording for all formats, ensured facts remained at the core. A powerful collaboration between Washington teams, Health and Science, and Standards editors enabled rapid yet accurate coverage.

The team aggressively, yet sensitively, covered the breaking news, highlighting that Trump’s statements ignored established science. A smart lineup of follow-up stories addressed the aftershocks: a fact-focused piece, a feature on pregnant women’s confusion, a political analysis of the impact on RFK Jr.’s movement, and an exclusive interview with the maker of a drug Trump touted. This unmatched speed and scope resulted in stories dominating APNews.com with 464,000 page views and a YouTube livestream garnering nearly 500,000 views, showcasing the power of thorough, fact-based journalism.

Submission Links

• https://apnews.com/article/tylenol-cause-autism-trump-kennedy-0847ee76eedecbd5e9baa6888b567d66
• https://apnews.com/article/trump-doctor-vaccines-autism-tylenol-covid-disinfectants-22f5bcfe2fd3c18fdd412419941541f8
• https://apnews.com/article/autism-tylenol-pregnancy-mothers-trump-fact-check-6e03fb199acf0c5ce313536c53424788
• https://apnews.com/article/maha-activists-trump-autism-vaccines-tylenol-medical-6fca8bb1b436bb76d1a223adc0f56112
• https://apnews.com/article/trump-tylenol-vaccines-pregnancy-8c8c44e40657a2338533c59ebefaa83a
• https://apnews.com/article/autism-trump-pregnancy-tylenol-65e9c04d05014345364212ecaec4ee3e
• https://apnews.com/article/trump-tough-it-out-pregnancy-women-pain-acetaminophen-dc48caddabef2f086a50b48c5b86a3ca
• https://www.youtube.com/watch

News Consumption Across Platforms

Many posts have dealt with news media 

From Pew:

News consumption across platforms varies by age, gender, race, ethnicity and educational attainment. For example, Americans ages 50 and older are more likely than younger adults to turn to television and print publications for news – and less likely to use digital sources such as social media or podcasts.

Americans with a college degree are more likely than those without one to get news at least sometimes from news websites or apps, podcasts, or email newsletters. Those without a college degree, on the other hand, are more likely than those with one to say they get news from social media.

Polarization and Trust in News

Jacob Liedke and Elisa Shearer at Pew Research:

Education and News Sources

Many posts have dealt with news media 

Mary Randolph and Michael Lipka at Pew:

For more information about the audiences of these news sources, refer to our News Media Tracker. For a full breakdown of education levels within the audience of each news source, refer to this detailed table.

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, the topline and the survey methodology.

AI and Campaigns

Artificial intelligence is an increasingly important topic in politics, policy, and law.

Bruce Mehlman:

In the business world, AI is making campaigns more targeted, efficient & effective. AI chat-bots are more persuasive than humans 64% of the time when provided with minimal demographic information. AI-powered campaigns show 131% increase in click-through rates and a 41% increase in overall engagement vs non-AI. Of course, campaign communications were already personalized to specific voters before AI models arrived. But AI-enabled messaging will leverage individual search histories in unprecedented ways, bringing cutting-edge brain science to the art of political persuasion.

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Truth is in the AI of the Beholder, Further Marginalizing Mass Media. The era of “choose your own reality” and “fake political news” preceded AI models by at least 200 years. AI is not the reason trust in mass media has declined for most of the past half century, with voters increasingly turning to non-mainstream media sources to get their political information. But AI will surely make it harder to detect, and far easier to mass-produce, misinformation, disinformation & “pink slime” (partisan advocacy posing as legit media). In the age of AI, an increasingly-atomized electorate will choose among candidates based on increasingly-divergent perceived realities.

CPB, RIP

Many posts have dealt with media problems such as ghost newspapers and news deserts.

Ted Johnson at Deadline:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down its operations after the loss of federal funding, marking the end of almost six decades as the entity that distributed grants to public media, PBS and NPR.

The CPB informed employees on Friday that the majority of staff positions will end on Sept. 30, with a small transition team in place through January, 2026. The CPB has around 100 employees.

Patricia Harrison, the president and CEO of CPB, said in a statement on Friday, “Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations. CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”

Rima Dael at RadioWorld:

The National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB) represents nearly 200 community radio stations across the United States. Most of these stations are not affiliated with NPR or PBS. They are hyper-local, often 100% volunteer-run operations serving small towns, Tribal nations and rural communities. They operate on shoestring budgets, powered by donated time and secondhand equipment.

For these stations, federal support through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is not ideological — it is survival.

According to CPB and GAO reports, up to half of rural stations could go off the air without federal funding. And when those stations go silent, so do the emergency alert systems communities rely on during wildfires, floods, tornadoes and other emergencies.

This is not theoretical. AM/FM radio remains the most reliable medium in a crisis (FCC, 2018). When cell towers burn, when the power goes out, when internet networks fail, people turn to battery-powered radios.

In many rural and Tribal regions, these community stations are the only real-time source of life-saving information.

The recent debate about NPR’s editorial choices should not be used to justify dismantling this critical civic infrastructure. The $1.1 billion Congress has clawed back will not significantly impact NPR executives or national programs, but it will devastate tiny community stations that have no other safety net.

These stations are staffed by neighbors, teachers and retirees. They air high school sports scores, weather alerts and local music alongside emergency notifications. They provide connection in places where isolation is real — and in moments of crisis, they save lives.

The next time a wildfire roars through Montana, a hurricane floods a Gulf Coast town,or a Tribal community issues evacuation orders, some people will turn their dials and hear only static

Colbert: Good Night, and Good Luck

Politicians have various ways of exerting pressure on the mass media.

Brian Stelter and Dan Heching, CNN:

In a shocking move, CBS is ending “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” next year, and apparently exiting the late-night television business altogether.

The network, citing financial pressures, said the cancellation will take effect in May 2026, the normal end of the broadcast TV season.

The decision is particularly surprising because “The Late Show” is typically the highest-rated show in late-night. And the timing is bound to raise questions because it comes just two weeks after the parent company of CBS, Paramount, settled a lawsuit lodged by President Trump against CBS News.

The settlement – and Paramount’s pending merger with Skydance Media – spurred speculation about Colbert’s future at CBS. Colbert, after all, is one of the staunchest critics of Trump on television.

Colbert alluded to the online worrying about his fate when he returned from vacation on Monday night. He condemned the Paramount settlement on air, likening it to a “big fat bribe,” and he joked that his new mustache would protect him from the corporation: “Okay, okay, but how are they going to put pressure on Stephen Colbert… if they can’t find him?”

 

What Is News?

  Kirsten Eddy at al. wrote a Pew study of the meaning of news:

Key findings:

• Defining news has become a personal, and personalized, experience. People decide what news means to them and which sources they turn to based on a variety of factors, including their own identities and interests.
• Most people agree that information must be factual, up to date and important to society to be considered news. Personal importance or relevance also came up often, both in participants’ own words and in their actual behaviors.
• “Hard news” stories about politics and war continue to be what people most clearly think of as news. U.S. adults are most likely to say election updates (66%) and information about the war in Gaza (62%) are “definitely news.”
• There are also consistent views on what news is not. People make clear distinctions between news versus entertainment and news versus opinion.
• At the same time, views of news as not being “biased” or “opinionated” can conflict with people’s actual behaviors and preferences. For instance, 55% of Americans believe it’s at least somewhat important that their news sources share their political views.
• People don’t always like news, but they say they need it: While many express negative emotions surrounding news (such as anger or sadness), they also say it helps them feel informed or feel that they “need” to keep up with it.
• People’s emotions about news are at times tied to broader feelings of media distrust, or specific events going on at that time – perhaps in combination with individuals’ political identities. For instance, partisans often react positively to news about their own political parties or candidates and negatively to news covering their opposition, which means feelings can shift with political changes.

The answers to the question “What is news?” are not always straightforward. As this study confirms, the definitions people hold for news may not be consistent with their actual behaviors. There are sometimes clashes between what people believe others think of as news and what “feels” like news to them. And people often categorize information as “news” along a continuum rather than as a simple yes-or-no question. Those perceptions vary depending on the platform, source and individual.

News Exhaustion

Many posts have dealt with media problems .  Earlier this year, people were already sick of political news and limiting their news intake.  There was similar exhaustion in 2018, though Republicans were more exhausted than Democrats.

AP-NORC:

Many are feeling the need to limit their news consumption, especially political news. Sixty-five percent of adults have felt the need to limit their media consumption about the government and politics due to information overload, fatigue, or similar reasons and half feel the same for overseas conflicts. Around four in ten adults feel the same way about news on the economy and climate change.

TOPLINE POLL RESULTS

 

The Checkers Speech

 Richard Nixon made an early, innovative use of television in 1952. He had a political fund -- what we would today call a PAC -- and opponents accused him of doing something shady. Nixon did lots of questionable stuff later on, but in this case, he was innocent of wrongdoing.  He explained that he did not use the fund to line his pockets, and that the only personal gift he accepted was a dog named Checkers.

A new video from the Nixon Foundation:

Magazines

Traditional magazines focusing on news and politics have crashed.  Of the top 100 American magazines by circulation, the biggest in this category is Time -- in 26th place.

 Mattie Kahn at NYT:

The media business might be in free fall, but in Issaquah, Wash., the merriest band of magazine makers in America drives to Costco headquarters and sets about producing a monthly print periodical that is delivered to more households across the United States than Better Homes & Gardens, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic combined.

And it’s growing. Each month, 15.4 million copies of Costco Connection are mailed out to “executive” members, who pay double the yearly membership fee of $65 for the magazine and other perks. (Another 300,000 are distributed via Costco warehouses.) Its reach is so vast that Costco Connection is now the nation’s third largest magazine by print circulation, behind AARP: The Magazine and The AARP Bulletin.

Limiting News Intake

Many posts have dealt with media problems , including news fatigue.

David Bauder and Linley Sanders at AP:

While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.

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Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.

SEE QUESTION 26 IN THE TOPLINES 

News and Facts

 Many posts have discussed myths and misinformation.

From The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

With less than two months until the U.S. presidential election, a new study from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts finds high levels of skepticism in election information heading into November 2024.

[ SEE THE TOPLINES]

People agree on basic standards for factual information—such as transparency (75%), providing more than one viewpoint on the subject (64%), and being devoid of opinion (57%)—but roughly a quarter find it difficult to get factual information about the candidates in the upcoming presidential election, and 34% struggle to know if election information is true or not.

When it comes to the candidates themselves, 57% of adults think Donald Trump’s campaign messages are rarely or never based on factual information, and 45% express the same doubts about Kamala Harris’s campaign.

More Republicans trust Trump and his campaign (67%) than government certifications of election results (51%) for accurate information on the outcome of the November election. In contrast, Democrats show similar levels of trust in government certifications (87%) and Harris and her campaign (82%).

Beyond the campaign trail, people are skeptical of the reliability of sources for obtaining accurate information about the government and remain doubtful of information from elected officials. Nearly half believe information from the federal government is influenced by the political beliefs of officials such as the president (49%) or members of Congress (48%). Just 10% of adults think decisions by policymakers are always or often grounded in factual information.

Only 10% of the public places a great deal of trust in information about the government on social media, but 40% report that they use social media at least once a day for government-related information. Information from the government on issues like immigration, elections, the environment, and foreign affairs is also met with mistrust, with about half of adults saying they trust it only a little or not at all.

New questions about artificial intelligence show the public’s skepticism across a range of measures. Half of adults (52%) are concerned about the future impact of AI tools on how they get information, while only 9% are excited. Nearly two-thirds (64%) are not confident that the information from AI chatbots or search results is reliable and factual. Looking ahead to this fall, only 27% trust AI even a moderate amount to provide accurate information about the outcome of the election in November, and 43% think AI will make it more difficult to find factual information about the election compared with just 16% who think it will make it easier.

The nationwide poll was conducted by The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research from July 29 to August 8, 2024 using AmeriSpeak®, NORC’s probability-based panel. Online and telephone interviews were conducted with adults age 18 and older representing the 50 states and the District of Columbia. 1,019 completed the survey—990 via the web and 29 by telephone. The overall margin of sampling error is +/- 4.0 percentage points.

• Suggested Citation: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (September 2024). State of the Facts 2024. https://apnorc.org/projects/state-of-the-facts-2024

Crime News

Many posts have discussed crime in the United States.

John Gramlich and Kirsen Eddy at Pew:

There are many possible reasons why Americans might believe crime is on the rise in the U.S., even when government statistics show the opposite. But a new Pew Research Center survey examines one potential factor shaping public perceptions: local news coverage about crime. The survey is from the Pew-Knight Initiative, a research program funded jointly by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Here are some of the key findings from the survey:

Crime gets a lot of attention in local news. An old journalism cliché – “If it bleeds, it leads” – refers to the prominent placement of (often sensationalized) news stories about crime. While the Center’s survey doesn’t confirm the cliché, it shows that crime is among the most widely consumed local news topics

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