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PEOPLE & ARTS Thursday 11 May 2017
Study finds Democrats far more interested in watchdog media

DAVID BAUDER than they are on Demo-
AP Television Writer crats, Graham said.
NEW YORK (AP) — In the “They don’t see them as
opening days of the Trump journalists,” he said. “They
administration, Democrats see them as prosecutors in
are far more interested a kangaroo court.”
than Republicans in see- The president has also kept
ing the news media as- up a drumbeat of media
sume the traditional role criticism, judging stories
of watchdogs to people in he doesn’t like to be fake
power, a survey released news.
on Wednesday found. Pew’s study found inter-
The Pew Research Cen- est in national news higher
ter poll found that 89 per- than it was in 2016 — an
cent of Democrats judged unusual trend given that
media criticism worth it people traditionally fade
because it keeps political away from the news follow-
leaders from doing things ing election years.
they shouldn’t, while only This is almost entirely driven
42 percent of Republicans by engaged older Demo-
felt that way. While sup- crats, Pew found, a de- In this Feb. 22, 2017, file photo, reporters raise their hands as White House press secretary Sean
porters of a party out of velopment also indicated Spicer takes questions during the daily briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House
power are generally more in strong television ratings in Washington. Associated Press
interested in seeing report- earned lately by MSNBC
ers dig for news than those and its prime-time star Ra- Pew’s online survey was adults who are members Panel. The margin of error
in power, the gap hasn’t chel Maddow. conducted between of Pew’s nationally repre- is plus or minus 2.7 percent-
been nearly this wide since The survey also found that March 13-27 among 4,151 sentative American Trends age points.q
Pew began looking at the 45 percent of Americans
question in 1985, said Amy often get news through
Mitchell, Pew’s director of mobile devices, up from
journalism research. 36 percent a year ago.
Just last year, 77 percent Democrats, again, lead
of Republicans supported the way in adapting to the
the media watchdog role, new technology.
compared with 74 percent As is often the case, the sur-
of Democrats, Pew found. vey didn’t uncover a great
Meanwhile, 56 percent of deal of trust in the news
Republicans said media media: 20 percent of re-
criticism keeps political spondents said they trusted
leaders from doing their national news organiza-
job, compared with 9 per- tions “a lot,” with another
cent of Democrats. That’s 52 percent saying they had
another startling shift from a some trust. But after a cam-
year earlier, where 20 per- paign season where con-
cent of Republicans and 22 sumers began relying more
percent of Democrats felt on social media feeds es-
that way, Pew said. sentially curated by their
With Democrats out of friends, that source was
power, “they see the me- held in even lower esteem.
dia as the last line of de- Thirty-eight percent of peo-
fense,” said Tim Graham, ple said they had at least
director of media analysis some trust in social media.
at the conservative Media “Even though we know
Research Center. Americans rely heavily on
At the same time, many social media for their news,
conservatives now see they continue to have very
reporters as being much little trust in it as a genre as
tougher on Republicans a whole,” Mitchell said.