Trump vs. Media: Americans Trust News Outlets More Than The President, Poll Finds

Two incidents pretty much sum up the relationship between President Donald Trump and a section of the media in the U. S. The first is the June 23 front page of the New York Times, detailing a catalogue of the "lies" that Trump has told the American people ever since he took oath as president on January 20. The second would be the tweet Trump posted Sunday that showed him pummeling a man whose head was covered by the CNN logo.

According to a poll conducted by Survey Monkey and published by Axios, on Tuesday, the media seems to be having the best of the feud, with the New York Times, Washington Post and broadcast television networks, faring better than Trump in terms of being trusted by the American people.

The poll, conducted between last Thursday and Monday, showed 50 percent of American adults trusting CNN more than Trump, with 43 percent favoring the president.

The poll also found, by a nine-percentage-point margin, American adults trusted the Post and the Times ― lumped together ― more than Trump. ABC, CBS and NBC meanwhile were more trusted by an 11-point margin over the president.

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The survey comes on the heels of a similar poll published Monday that showed both Trump and, even more so, the media struggling on the trust issue.

In the NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist College poll, more than two-thirds of American adults ― 68 percent ― said they did "not at all" trust the media or "not very much." The figure for Trump was 61 percent.

Given the history of animosity and distrust between the president and a section of the media, the relationship may not change much during the rest of Trump’s tenure. Barely a month after taking office, Trump had termed the "fake news media" as “the enemy of the American people.”

The New York Times quoted Carl Bernstein, who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, as saying the president’s attitude toward the press was similar to former President Richard Nixon who reportedly once said, “The press is the enemy.”

“But there is a similarity in trying to divide the country, and make the conduct of the press the issue, instead of the conduct of the president,” Bernstein told the Times.

READ: Mainstream News Outlets More Trusted Than POTUS

This swiveling of the spotlight from the conduct of the president to the conduct of the media was apparent when CNN had three journalists resign over a retracted story related to Russia.

The president then retweeted a tweet featuring the CNN logo altered to read “FNN: Fake News Network.” The president then broadened his attack by naming and shaming other news outlets.

Writing on how the feud has played out, David A. Graham of the Atlantic, said: “The general reaction from the press seems likely to encourage Trump while failing to rally the public against his behavior.”

He urged the media to make a stronger case to the American people as to why the attacks on the media were unacceptable. “Rather than explaining why the president attacking the media is bad for the media, the media need to appeal to the public’s self-interest and explain why it’s bad for them,” Graham wrote.