Opinion journalism is shaped by a persistent tension: journalists may interpret public issues, while audiences still expect accuracy, transparency, and clear boundaries between evidence and argument. Surveys from Pew Research Center and Gallup show how journalists and the public assess those expectations, with results varying by political identity, age, digital experience, and trust in news organizations.
Contents
- How journalists define fairness
- What newsrooms are expected to do
- Trust inside and outside news organizations
- Political differences in local journalism
- Media trust by party and age
- Ethics ratings for reporters
- How audiences identify facts and opinions
How journalists define fairness
The 2022 Pew Research Center Journalist Survey found that journalists do not have a single view of balance. Fifty-five percent said every side does not always deserve equal coverage in news reporting, while 44% said journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage. Those results describe a distinction that matters for opinion journalism: fairness can mean presenting competing claims, but it does not necessarily mean giving every claim identical space.
The same survey found that 82% of journalists said reporters should keep their own views out of reporting. Yet only 55% thought journalists are largely able to do so, while 43% said journalists are often unable to keep their views out of reporting. The gap between the professional expectation and perceived performance is 27 percentage points.
Journalists also differed over whether news organizations should cover false public statements. Sixty-four percent said news organizations should report on a public figure’s false or made-up statement. Thirty-two percent said they should not, and 4% gave no answer. In practice, the disagreement is not simply about whether a statement is true; it concerns whether the statement is newsworthy enough to report and how it should be presented.
What newsrooms are expected to do
The 2022 Pew journalist survey measured several newsroom responsibilities. Sixty-seven percent of journalists said news organizations do a very or somewhat good job covering the most important stories of the day. Sixty-five percent gave that assessment for reporting the news accurately.
Other responsibilities received lower positive assessments:
| Newsroom responsibility | Journalists saying organizations do a very or somewhat good job |
|---|---|
| Covering the most important stories | 67% |
| Reporting accurately | 65% |
| Serving as watchdogs over elected leaders | 52% |
| Giving voice to underrepresented people | 46% |
| Managing or correcting misinformation | 43% |
Misinformation produced the closest split. Forty-three percent said news organizations do a very or somewhat good job managing or correcting misinformation, while 40% said they do a very or somewhat bad job. For readers evaluating opinion journalism, this helps explain why sourcing, corrections, and explicit distinctions between reported evidence and commentary are central to credibility.
Trust inside and outside news organizations
The 2022 Pew journalist survey also asked journalists how much trust they believed audiences place in news organizations. Only 14% thought the U.S. public has a great deal or fair amount of trust in news organizations. Forty-two percent thought the public has little or no trust, and 44% thought the public has some trust.
Journalists viewed their own audiences more favorably. Eighty-three percent thought their audience has at least a fair amount of trust in their news organization. Within that group, 35% said their audience has a great deal of trust and 13% said it has some trust. Three percent thought their audience has a little or no trust.
The words journalists used to describe the news industry showed another divide. Seventy-two percent gave a negative word, 9% gave a positive word, and 17% gave a neutral word. When asked what word the public would use, 90% of journalists expected a negative word, 3% expected a positive word, and 2% expected a neutral word.
Among the specific descriptions, 31% said the public would describe the news industry as inaccurate or untrustworthy, while 28% said the public would describe it as biased, partisan, or divisive. The 2022 survey also found that 75% of journalists viewed political sorting of news audiences as a major problem, 19% as a minor problem, and 5% as not a problem.
Political differences in local journalism
The 2019 Pew Research Center local news survey asked U.S. adults whether local journalists should express their views on local issues. Overall, 61% said local journalists should not express their views, compared with 36% who said they should.
The partisan differences were substantial. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning adults, 71% said local journalists should not express their views and 28% said they should. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults, 54% said local journalists should not express their views and 44% said they should.
Respondents also evaluated local news organizations on fairness, accuracy, transparency, and community connection. The figures below come from the same 2019 local news survey.
| Evaluation of local news | Republicans | Democrats |
|---|---|---|
| Say local media deal fairly with all sides | 64% | 78% |
| Say local media report accurately | 53% | 70% |
| Say local media are transparent about reporting | 55% | 69% |
| Very confident in main local news source | 27% | 34% |
| Say journalists are in touch with communities | 61% | 67% |
| Say local media cover their area | 49% | 54% |
| Say local media have a lot of local influence | 34% | 40% |
These measures do not establish why the groups differed, but they show that assessments of local journalism were not uniform. For campus readers, the pattern is relevant to student newspapers and community reporting: perceived fairness and transparency can depend on the audience’s political perspective as well as on the newsroom’s practices.
Media trust by party and age
Gallup’s 2024 media-trust findings measured confidence in the mass media. Thirty-one percent of Americans said they trust the mass media a great deal or fair amount. Another 33% said they do not trust the mass media very much, while 36% said they have no trust at all.
Trust varied sharply by political identity. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans said they have no trust at all in the mass media, compared with 42% of independents and 6% of Democrats. Looking at low trust overall, Gallup reported that 88% of Republicans, 74% of independents, and 46% of Democrats had low trust in the media.
Age was also associated with different trust levels. Forty-three percent of Americans age 65 and older said they trust the mass media a great deal or fair amount, compared with 26% of Americans under age 50. Among Democrats, 31% of those ages 18 to 29 expressed that level of trust, compared with 74% of Democrats age 65 and older.
The results suggest that a single national measure of media trust can conceal important differences between audience groups. An opinion editor writing for students, for example, may be addressing readers whose trust levels differ from those of older adults or from the population overall. The figures describe survey responses, not a forecast of how any particular campus audience will respond.
Ethics ratings for reporters
Gallup’s ethics readings provide a longer view of how Americans rate journalism professions. In Gallup’s 2023 ethics poll, 78% of Americans said nurses have high honesty and ethical standards. In the 2024 ethics readings, 17% gave newspaper reporters that rating and 13% gave it to TV reporters. The 2023 reading reported 19% for journalists.
The historical comparison is also notable: 36% of Americans said TV reporters had high honesty and ethical standards in 1981, compared with the 13% reported in the 2024 reading. These are measurements from different years and labels, so they should be treated as a trend comparison rather than as a direct evaluation of one unchanged survey question.
Gallup’s 2021 ethics poll showed partisan differences in ratings of reporters. Seventeen percent of Republicans and 24% of Democrats rated TV reporters highly. For newspaper reporters, the corresponding figures were 7% of Republicans and 30% of Democrats. Members of Congress received high ratings from 12% of Republicans and 13% of Democrats in the same poll.
How audiences identify facts and opinions
The 2018 Pew Research Center fact-and-opinion study tested whether Americans could distinguish factual statements from opinion statements. Eighty-nine percent of Democrats correctly identified a factual statement about Barack Obama’s birthplace as factual, compared with 63% of Republicans. For a minimum-wage opinion statement, 37% of Democrats incorrectly classified it as factual, compared with 17% of Republicans.
Political awareness and digital experience were also associated with performance. Thirty-six percent of Americans with high political awareness correctly identified all five factual statements, compared with 17% of those with low political awareness. Forty-four percent of very digitally savvy Americans identified all five opinion statements correctly, compared with 21% of less digitally savvy Americans.
Trust in national news organizations showed a similar association. Thirty-nine percent of Americans with a lot of trust in national news organizations correctly identified all five factual statements, compared with 18% of those with not much or no trust.
On a broader classification measure, 78% of Democrats correctly classified at least three of five factual statements, compared with 68% of Republicans. For factual statements attributed to Fox News, 77% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats classified them correctly.
Together, these findings show why opinion journalism benefits from labeling claims clearly and linking arguments to verifiable evidence. The 2018 study measured people’s ability to classify selected statements; it did not establish that one political group is universally better at recognizing facts or opinions. Its results instead point to differences associated with the specific statements, respondents’ political awareness, digital experience, and trust in national news organizations.