An old Beltway adage is that almost no one trusts Congress, but if Americans are asked about their local congressperson, it’s a different story. There’s a face to a name.
So, while it’s notable to read that a new Gallup survey of 1,000 U.S. adults has found that the number of Americans who have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media appears to have hit a multi-decade low, it isn’t necessarily surprising. Even if the last time the figure was that low was around when Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Here’s how Gallup has phrased the question for years:
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“In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media — such as newspapers, T.V. and radio — when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly — a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?”
That number now sits at 28 percent of U.S. adults who answered the above question with “a great deal” or “a fair amount.” Given that media consumption now is not, likely, an hour of uninterrupted ABC World News Tonight but more of fragments of clips built on top of other clips — essentially we all see a cascade of arguments or responses in our social feeds — the phrasing “fully, accurately, and fairly” itself almost seems like a relic of a bygone time. (And that’s not a criticism of Gallup, more of just a recognition of the media landscape that exists in 2025.)
Gallup’s latest poll also noted that only 8 percent of Republicans have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the media now, as compared to 51 percent of Democrats. That’s an enormous gulf but understandable given a yearslong effort by Donald Trump to delegitimize traditional news outlets as “fake news,” and, in his second term, pursue legal battles and get settlements from legacy players ranging from ABC News to CBS News.
While this latest Gallup snapshot looks at media with a ten thousand-foot view — “overall trust could decrease further in the future, unless Republican trust rebounds” — and the weight of decades of data behind it, there are more lenses to view the idea of media trust now.
The Hollywood Reporter, in partnership with intelligence firm Morning Consult, recently published its latest look at the most trusted news anchors in nationally representative survey of 2,202 U.S. adults. The goal was to look at 80-plus major journalistic names in television news (along with a few TV-like influencers) to get a sense of America’s media diet now and who people trust to deliver the news. One open question was how attitudes about trust may have changed from the Joe Biden era and the 2024 presidential election to this year, where Trump wields his Truth Social bully pulpit on an hourly basis to shift opinion.
And, if we’re using the new 28 percent figure from Gallup as a baseline of what percentage of Americans are mostly trustful of “the media” as a big faceless entity, then what happens when you zero in on certain big names in the media? The answer is that trust levels rise notably if you’re talking about a specific person in the media — lets say Anderson Cooper, the face of CNN and a key CBS News 60 Minutes name:
That’s about 60 percent of U.S. adult respondents who said they have “A lot” or “Some” trust in Anderson Cooper. Obviously, much better than the 28 percent Gallup poll of trust in media, as that figure hits a new low. And the CNN anchor isn’t an outlier.
All 80-plus names in the THR/Morning Consult poll had at least 36 percent of Americans saying that they mostly trusted the individual anchor or news host. And most names saw much higher levels of trust in the 40 percent, 50 percent or 60 percent range. (Who was the most and least trusted? In short: Today host Al Roker was at the top, ABC News anchor David Muir was close behind and NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo saw the lowest score.)
Or, lets zoom out to the network view. Here’s look at 10 of CNN’s top names, ranked by the THR/Morning Consult poll’s highest combined “a lot / some” responses in trust. Again, all far above the 28 percent Gallup figure. (One big caveat is, obviously, the wording of “a lot” and “some” trust in the THR poll is different than “a great deal” and “fair” from Gallup, but there’s more similarities than differences. There’s an apples and oranges debate to be had, too).
CNN is just one example — one of the big topline takeaways in the THR poll was that in Trump’s second term the trustworthy percentage points on Fox News anchors rose the most collectively year-over-year. That was the “Trump won the election” impact. So, while Gallup may be correct that trust in “the media” is hitting a low, more Americans are trusting the people that they watch. It’s easy to criticize a faceless entity but people are usually more nuanced when asked to consider an individual. Call it the local congressperson effect. And, for many of those Americans, that’s Fox News personalities right now.
For more detail, and many more charts, see:
Most Trusted News Anchors In 2025 — THR/Morning Consult Poll
