NEW YORK — While many Americans say they learn about the 2024 election campaign through national media outlets, a disturbing poll reveals some serious trust issues.
About half of Americans, 53%, say they are extremely or very concerned about news organizations reporting inaccuracies or misinformation during the election. About 42% express concern about the media using generative artificial intelligence to create stories, according to a survey by the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The poll revealed that 47% of Americans also expressed serious concern about the media reporting information that has not been confirmed or verified, and 44% fear that accurate information will be presented in a way that favors one side or the other.
Half of Americans say they always or frequently receive election news through national media outlets, a percentage that is higher among older respondents, the survey concluded.
“The level of engagement is good,” said Michael Bolden, CEO of the American Press Institute. “What’s most concerning is that they’re not sure they can really trust the information.”
Years of suspicion about journalists, much of it sown by politicians, are partly to blame, he said. People are also less familiar with how journalism works. The survey found that about half of respondents say they have at least a moderate amount of confidence in the information they receive from national or local media outlets when it comes to the 2024 elections, although only about 1 in 10 say they have a lot of confidence. . trust.
“There may have been a time when people knew a journalist because he lived on their block,” Bolden said. “The way the industry has been decimated, that’s much less likely.”
Simply releasing the news frequently is no longer enough, he said. There is a growing disconnect between news organizations and the communities that media outlets need to address, helping to inform people about what journalists do and how the people who report the news are their friends and neighbors, he said.
The media should take on the role of organizers, bringing people together for newsworthy events, he said.
About half of U.S. adults say they closely follow news about the presidential election, with older adults being the most involved. About two-thirds of Americans ages 60 and older say they closely follow presidential election news, compared with about a third of those under 30.
The same trend is seen in local and state election news. While the survey found that 46% of Americans ages 60 and older say they closely follow local and state election news, just 16% of people ages 18 to 29 said the same thing.
“As they transition into becoming older people, will they start to care?” Bolden asked. “If they don’t start caring, what will that mean for local and state communities?”
Young people, under 30, are as likely to receive election news through social media, from friends or family, as they are to obtain it through national or local media outlets, the survey concluded. Black and Latino adults are slightly more likely to express “a lot” of confidence in the reliability of social media as a source of election news than white Americans.
This is both a warning sign, as there is much more misinformation on social media, and an opportunity for traditional media outlets to make more of their work available in this way, Bolden said.
About 6 in 10 Democrats say they receive election news from national media outlets at least frequently. That’s more than 48% of Republicans or 34% of independents, according to the poll. Republicans are more likely than Democrats and independents to express concern about inaccurate or misinformation in news coverage during the upcoming election. About 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned about this, compared with about half of Democrats.
In addition to the inaccuracies, many have also expressed serious concern about election news that focuses too much on divisions or controversies or focuses on who might win or lose — the horse race aspect of political coverage — rather than on issues or the character of the candidates. .
Most Americans say that in order to make informed decisions about the 2024 state and local elections, they want national and local media outlets to highlight candidates’ values or their different positions on important social issues. In each case, about three-quarters of U.S. adults say they would like “a lot” or “some” coverage of these topics.
___
The survey of 2,468 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
___
David Bauder writes about media for the Associated Press. Follow him on
