Legacy media exists to promote propaganda and political agendas. The 24/7 365 news cycle acts as a distraction from the topics plaguing society. The revolution will not be televised. Truth must be decoded and extracted from outside sources. Americans have woken up and realized that the mainstream media is an untrustworthy source.
The latest Gallup poll has found that the majority of Americans now distrust the media. Only 28% of respondents have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television, and radio. The figure seems high considering everything that has unfolded since the pandemic.
Around 31% of respondents trusted the media one year ago. Amid COVID in 2020, 40% of respondents held onto hope that the mainstream media was a reliable news source. Seven in 10 Americans reported that they do not have confidence in the mass media. Around 36% reported they have “not very much” confidence, while 34% reported “none at all.”
Gallup noted that Americans had a much higher level of confidence in the media back in the day. Around 70% of US adults trusted TV, radio, and newspapers to deliver reliable information back in the 1970s. That figure plummeted to 53% by 1997 and fell beneath the 50% level in 2004. The latest reading from September 2-16, 2025, indicated the lowest confidence on record.
There is one conservative news outlet in America, and naturally, Republicans have far lower confidence in reporting. MSM confidence among Republicans plummeted to 21% in 2015 and is now at a mere 8%. A little over half (51%) of Democrats continue to trust the media, but this low has not been seen since the 2016 US Presidential Election. Less than half of Independents have trusted legacy media since 2003, with the latest poll showing a record low of 27%.
Older Democrats are clinging to old beliefs that the legacy media is reporting on behalf of the people. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats over 65 still have confidence in broadcasting, with the figure declining ten points or more with each generation of self-reported Democratic voters. Republicans over 65 also have the highest levels of trust in the media among their peers at 17%, with young Republicans aged 18-29 expressing the second-most favorable view of mass media. In contrast, the next generation of Republicans aged 30-49 have the lowest level of confidence among any demographic at 6%. As the trend indicates, older Independents also express the highest level of confidence among their peers (42%), followed by the youngest Independent voters (29%) aged 18-29.
The days of the Sunday paper are long gone, as are the days of gathering around the TV to watch the nightly news. “Journalism” has been oversaturated by the 24/7 news cycle ,bombarding the public with messaging at every turn. One cannot step outside or interact with society without seeing messaging from the media that is often pushed discreetly. Social media has turned everyone with a phone into an independent reporter with the same video loops and messages playing in a continuous loop. The American people are fatigued by the mockingbird media, and more importantly, by the establishment’s brainwashing onslaught.