Poll: 72% of Americans Believe Establishment Media Deliberately Report Fake News

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks with reporters as he arrives to speak
Jim Cole/AP

More than two-thirds of Americans, a full 72 percent, believe “traditional news outlets knowingly report false or misleading stories,” according to a Axios/SurveyMonkey poll.

Only 25 percent of Americans believe the media “rarely” or “never” deliberately report fake news.

In other words, only one-quarter of the country believe the media are not guilty of intentionally spreading lies to mislead the American people.

The partisan breakdown is even more revealing…

A full 92 percent of Republicans believe the media intentionally mislead the public. Independents are not far behind, with 79 percent. Even a majority of Democrats, 52 percent, agree, with only 46 percent disagreeing.

And… as if to prove the poll’s point, the Axios report on its own bombshell poll is wildly misleading.

No fair-minded journalist can look at these numbers and not be blown away by the fact that the establishment media have so lost the trust of the American that a breathtaking 72 percent now believe (and for good reason) fake news is reported deliberately.

Seventy-two percent.

Nevertheless, as a means to bury this bombshell of bad news, the left-wing Axios focuses instead on the Republican number of 92 percent, as if to say this is a partisan problem, when there is no question the media have a massive and well-deserved credibility problem all across the board.

The misleading Axios headline reads, “92% of Republicans think media intentionally reports fake news,” which is a deliberate attempt to keep the focus off of the 72 percent.

The top portion of the Axios write up focuses only on the Republican number and summarizes it this way, “The data shows that trust in the media is heavily influenced by partisan politics, with Republicans more skeptical of mainstream media than their Democratic and Independent counterparts.”

Talk about misleading spin. Republicans may be the most skeptical, but we are only talking about a 92/72 percent spread between Republicans and the entire country.

Of those who believe fake news is deliberate, a whopping 65 percent say this is because “people have an agenda.”

Only 30 percent blame the establishment media’s fake news spree on  “laziness” or “poor fact-checking.”

Naturally, the far-left Axios attempts to blame President Trump for “exacerbate[ing] the skepticism amongst hardline conservatives with polarizing language (and tweets) about the mainstream media being ‘fake news.'”

“Hardline conservatives?”

Does the mean 72 percent of America is made up of “hardline conservatives?”

Nowhere does Axios mention the countless lies the media have been caught reporting over the last few years.

You see, according to the Politico washouts who created Axios, the media only have a perception problem, not a credibility problem.

Talk about fake news.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here

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