Three-fourths of Americans think media is biased: Pew

More than three-quarters of U.S. adults say that news organizations are biased when presenting news on social and political issues, according to a new survey.

The survey from the Pew Research Center released Tuesday found that 77 percent of surveyed Americans believe media organizations are biased. This is a slight decrease from early 2020, when 79 percent of respondents said the same thing, marking the highest percentage since Pew began asking the question nearly 40 years ago.

Meanwhile, just 22 percent of Americans in the most recent survey said the media fairly deals with all sides.

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The perceptions of media bias varied by party, as Republicans continued their trend of being more likely to believe news coverage favors one side. Nearly 9 in 10 Republicans said news coverage favors one side, compared to 67 percent of Democrats.

The survey also revealed that nearly three-fourths of Americans believe that media criticism keeps political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done, compared to 24 percent who said it hinders politicians from doing their jobs.

These responses also varied based on political affiliation, with 81 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying media criticism helps keep political leaders in check, compared to 67 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

The latter figure, however, is a stark increase from the beginning of President-elect Trump’s first term, when roughly 50 percent of Republicans said the same thing.

The Pew Research Center conducted the survey from Sept. 16 to 22 among 9,680 U.S. adults. The margin of error is 1.3 percentage points.

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