U.S. corporate media broadcasters and social media companies now rank among the least trusted institutions in the world, according to the May results of the Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll, a monthly collaboration between the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard and the Harris Poll and HarrisX.
In fact, Americans’ views of the media are at such a nadir they’re matched only by our current collective outlook on the state of the country and the U.S. economy at large.
According to the poll, when it comes to the most and least favorable institutions today, Americans gave Fox News an unfavorability ranking of 42 percent, tying with Black Lives Matter. CNN earned an unfavorable ranking of 40 percent, below NATO, Ukraine and the U.S. Supreme Court. Twitter (38 unfavorable) and MSNBC (36 unfavorable) were other low-ranking institutions. TikTok achieved an unfavorability rating of 47 percent, barely beating out Antifa, China and Russia, which bottomed out the list.
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So, what are Americans’ most beloved institutions? According to the poll, Amazon (78 percent), the U.S. Military (77 percent) and Google (75 percent) are the most favored institutions among Americans.
According to the poll, most Americans still prefer to get their news primarily from TV (43 percent), followed by online news sites (22 percent). Facebook came in third (8 percent), followed by Google (6 percent), the radio (6 percent), Twitter (5 percent) and TikTok (3 percent)
Most respondents identifying as conservative who get their news primarily from TV (40 percent) said that Fox News is their preferred news source, while most Democrats (28 percent) get their news from CNN. Both outlets dominate online as well.
The Harris-Harvard survey also painted a bleak picture when it comes to Americans’ views on the current state of the country. Fewer than a third (31 percent) of Americans said they think the country is on the right track, and two-thirds (62 percent) believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. An additional 62 percent think the economy in bad shape, and almost half (49 percent) said their personal financial situation is now worse than it was before.
Americans said inflation remains the single most important issue facing the country today (34 percent) followed by immigration (27 percent), the economy and jobs (25 percent) and guns (22 percent).
Finally, the poll found that a majority of Americans (62 percent) don’t think Biden or Trump should run for a second term. Two-thirds (66 percent) said they believe the country needs “another choice” aside from Biden or Trump in 2024.
The Harris-Harvard survey polled more than 2,000 registered U.S. voters in May and was conducted online by The Harris Poll and HarrisX.
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