Study finds little agreement between Republicans and Democrats on media sources they trust

A new survey that probes the level of trust Democrats and Republicans have for news sources finds the business-oriented publications Forbes and The Wall Street Journal share an unusual distinction: They’re the only two of 30 news sources that sympathizers for both parties told the Pew Research Center they’re more likely to trust than distrust.

Pew’s survey, released Tuesday, illustrates how the country’s political polarization has members of both parties in different media silos. Democrats trust more news sources than Republicans, and rarely do their tastes intersect.

Of 30 news sources tested, people who said they were Republican or leaned Republican were more likely to say they trust eight of them. Democrats had more trust than distrust for 23 different sources. Forbes and The Wall Street Journal were the only two on both lists.

There were only two news sources tested that more than three in 10 Republicans said they were likely to trust - Fox News Channel, with 56%, and the Joe Rogan podcast, with 31%.

Meanwhile, 13 of the sources had trust levels of more than 30% among Democrats - the three broadcast news divisions, PBS, CNN, BBC, The New York Times, The Associated Press, MSNBC, National Public Radio, USA Today, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Rogan’s podcast illustrated some of the sharp differences between the parties and why President Donald Trump’s interview there proved influential during the last election. Forty percent of Democrats said they distrust Rogan’s show as a source, while only 3% of Democrats trust it as a news source. Others said they didn’t know enough about the show to offer an opinion.

Nearly two of three Democrats said they distrust Fox News, but 19% said they trust it. Among Republicans, 21% said they distrust Fox.

The survey finds that 23% of Republicans said they trust PBS, while 26% distrust PBS. Democrats trust PBS by a 59% to 4% margin.

Trump, a Republican, is trying to eliminate most government spending for PBS, arguing that its news content shows a liberal bias. Pew’s survey indicates Republicans are fairly evenly divided on that question.

That’s not the case for NPR, which is also on Trump’s chopping block. Pew finds that more than twice as many Republicans distrust NPR than trust it, while Democrats trust NPR by a 47% to 3% margin.

"It’s still a very polarized media ecosystem," said Elisa Shearer, a senior researcher at Pew. "It’s too early to tell if there will be changes in the future."

A separate Pew survey from March found that 53% of Republicans expressed at least some trust in the information they get from national news organizations, up from 40% only six months earlier. But Shearer said it was tough to tell how much of that increase simply had to do with a new Republican administration taking charge.

For the survey released on Tuesday, Pew said it questioned 9,482 U.S. adults in mid-March.

PBS says Trump's effort to rescind funding for public media would disrupt an essential service provided to the American people.