A Gallup poll released Wednesday found that 62 percent of Americans now believe the media has a partisan bias. Only 27 percent of Americans believe that the media doesn’t favor either political party.
This marks a rise in the public’s perception of bias in the media, as the last time Gallup asked this question in February 2003 Americans were evenly divided on the issue with 48 percent believing there was a bias and 46 percent believing the media didn’t take sides.
Gallup notes that Republicans are mostly behind the increased belief in media bias since 2003 explaining, “77% of Republicans say the media favors one party over the other; in 2003, 59% of Republicans said the same. By comparison, 44% of Democrats now say the media plays favorites, unchanged from the 44% who said so in 2003.”
Among those who believe the media is biased towards a particular party, 64 percent thought the bias favored the Democratic party while only 22 percent thought the media favored the Republican party.
The majority of those surveyed also thought that news organizations often get the facts wrong.
Fifty-five percent said that news organizations' stories are "often inaccurate" while only 36 percent said news organizations generally get the facts straight.
Results for the Gallup poll are based on phone interviews “conducted March 9-29, 2017 with a random sample of 789 adults.”