Poll: 25% of Americans trust print news

Posted by Clara Martínez Turco on August 16, 2010 at 9:06 AM

Americans' confidence in newspapers remains low, as only a quarter of the population says it trusts the press, a Gallup poll revealed on Friday.

Yet the greatest confidence (49 percent) comes from people between 18 and 29 years old, "the same demographic often blamed for the precipitous decline in U.S. dailies' subscription rates," Agence France Press pointed out. Nonetheless, the newspaper industry is not the only media field experiencing low confidence. According to the poll, 78 percent distrust television news.

The survey, which annually measures confidence in 16 U.S. institutions, found that trust declines as Americans get older, hitting its lowest level in the group between 30 and 49 years, with a 16 percent of confidence. Gallup explained this tendency by saying that young people place more trust in institutions in general, AFP noted. Trust in media, which has been declining since 2003, is now similar to the one Americans have in banks (23 percent) and much better than Congress (11 percent).