By Rick Moran
No one trusts the media. Not left, not right, not those who believe themselves to be centrists. So this Gallup-Knight Foundation survey shouldn’t surprise us when both sides believe the media isn’t doing a good job informing the public of the pandemic.
Also not surprisingly, there is a vast difference in perceptions from the public on coronavirus coverage depending on one’s political partisanship.
The survey shows that Democrats believe the media is downplaying the severity of the crisis while Republicans believe the media is exaggerating the dangers.
As with many things in the Trump political environment, partisanship played a role. Democrats saw a bigger problem with stories that downplayed the virus, while Republicans said reports that hyped the crisis were more harmful.
But in both cases, the majority of partisans in each political party agreed that the media’s coverage of the pandemic fell far short of what they wanted.
People aren’t satisfied with the media giving them what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear because they don’t trust them. They believe the media is as biased and as partisan as they are.
Asked if media exaggerating the coronavirus caused “unnecessary harm,” 87% of Republicans agreed. Among Democrats, it was 25 points lower, at 62%.
Asked if downplaying the crisis threatened public health, 78% of Democrats agreed. Among Republicans, it was 60%.
“Partisanship informs what type of skewed coverage is considered harmful. More than twice as many Democrats (84%) as Republicans (35%) ‘strongly agree’ that coverage downplaying the threat is harmful, although majorities of all party groups at least somewhat agree,” read the analysis.