Good news for those of us in the media business: public trust in the media is up from an all-time low to slightly higher than an all-time low.
According to Gallup’s latest poll measuring public trust in the media, 55% of respondents have “not very much” or “none at all” trust in the media, while 44% have “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media. That is better than last year’s all-time low, when 60% of respondents say they didn’t trust the media, and only 40% saying they did.
The 2013 numbers are more or less identical to the 2011 numbers, and slightly better than 2010’s.
Republicans, Democrats and independents all had more trust in the media this year than they did last year, though a plurality of Republicans and independents still believe the media in general is “too liberal.” Gallup explains:
This year’s bump in confidence comes mainly from independents and Republicans, after these groups’ trust in the media dropped last year amid a heated presidential election race in which Mitt Romney supporters may have felt their candidate was being treated unfairly. Democrats’ confidence, however, has been inching up since 2011.