Eighty-four percent say the media plays a “critical” or “very important” role in our democracy. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Study: Americans view media negatively, can't agree on meaning of 'fake news' Forty-three percent of respondents also had a very or somewhat unfavorable view of the press.

A new study on the news media in the United States, released on Tuesday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, finds many familiar if unsettling trends: Americans have a negative view of the media, believe coverage is more biased than ever and are sharply divided in their views along partisan lines.

Those findings reflect continuations of longstanding trends. One finding, though, was unique to the Trump era: Americans are so polarized that they cannot even agree on the definition of “fake news.”


Democrats, the study found, hew more closely to the original definition of the phrase that emerged after the 2016 election, referring to fabricated news stories that are intended to deceive.

Republicans, on the other hand, are more likely to have also adopted the meaning that President Donald Trump has ascribed to the term, which he often tags on stories that he dislikes, regardless of whether or not they are factual.

Sam Gill, the Knight Foundation’s vice president for communities and impact, said that Trump’s constant use of the term made it “critical to try to understand what people hear when they hear that term and what people mean when they use that term.”

The phrase has become “dangerous,” he said, because “to a lot of people, it really is about what side are you on.”

“If the discussion about the role of the media and the value of the media becomes, in every way, a part of other kinds of polarized debates and competitions in our society,” Gill said, “that’s going to be ultimately quite problematic.”

Despite disagreements over the meaning of “fake news,” Gill pointed out that there is broad agreement on the underlying issue, with 73 percent of respondents to the survey agreeing that misinformation on the internet is a major problem. Another 58 percent said that the proliferation of sources online made it more difficult to sort out what’s actually true or important.

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“If we can pull back and recognize that people across party lines value accurate information, that’s a real opportunity,” Gill said.

According to Tim Franklin, a senior associate dean at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, who was not involved with the survey, the clashing definitions of “fake news” make it harder to do anything about the actual problem.

“The problem is that ‘fake news’ has become completely politicized and weaponized,” Franklin said in an email. “As a result, there’s no unified public outrage to tackle the real hoax news problem, which includes profiteers and even international players who don’t have our nation’s best interests in mind.”

The study — the 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey on Trust, Media and Democracy, based on mailed-in responses from more than 19,000 Americans age 18 or older — asked people to rate whether four categories of information were “Always,” “Sometimes” or “Never” fake news.

The first was the conventional definition: “People knowingly portraying false information as if it were true.”

On this, there was rough agreement: Among Democrats, 43 percent of respondents said this always counted as “fake news,” 48 percent said sometimes, and 7 percent said never. Republicans replied 52 percent always, 44 percent sometimes, 2 percent never.

On “Journalists reporting stories before they check all their facts and sources to be sure they are accurate,” Republicans were more wary. Democrats responded 24 percent always, 66 percent sometimes, 8 percent never, while Republicans said 48 percent always, 48 percent sometimes, 2 percent never.

Republicans were also much more likely to label news organizations they perceive as biased as “fake news.”

In response to “News organizations slanting their stories to promote a certain point of view,” Democrats replied 20 percent always, 67 percent sometimes, 10 never, while Republicans said 53 percent always, 44 percent sometimes, 2 percent never.

And finally, Republicans were more likely to label news that they simply found disagreeable as “fake.”

Asked to rate “Accurate news stories casting a politician or political group in a negative light,” Democrats said 26 percent always, 50 percent sometimes, 22 percent never, while Republicans replied 42 percent always, 46 percent sometimes, 10 percent never.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University, said she found those results troubling, since they indicate that some “Republicans now see partisan beliefs as ‘fake,’ and they have also bought into Trump’s cult of personality credo that anything or anyone critiquing him is not real.”

“The big takeaway is that Trump’s media marketing campaign is working, not just on his core, but on Republicans in general,” she said.

Other key findings of the survey: Even as 84 percent say the media play a “critical” or “very important” role in our democracy, 43 percent of respondents had a very or somewhat unfavorable view of the press, with 33 percent favorable and 23 percent neutral. Just 15 percent of Republicans had a favorable view, with 68 percent unfavorable. Democrats replied 54 percent favorable, 18 percent unfavorable.

Americans, Gill said, “see the media as a key and important part of our democracy but don’t see it as fulfilling that role.”

Overall, 54 percent of Americans said social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have had a negative impact. With the approval ratings of Trump, a prolific tweeter, hovering in the 30s, 53 percent of respondents said that politicians' use of social media to communicate with the public has been more negative than positive.

The media face a difficult way forward, complicated by the issues around “fake news,” according to Franklin, the Medill School dean.

“News organizations need to do a better job engaging their readers,” he said, “and explaining to them how they report stories and the care they put into getting it right.”

