What Journalists Should Know About Public News Preferences This Election
The reliability of news related to the 2024 election has been cast with doubt more than ever before. Although the majority of adults use the news to get the information they need about the election, only 7% of them actually have full confidence in the validity of information received from these sources.
The percentage of U.S. adults that have a “fair amount” of confidence adds up to merely 28%. A “fair amount” of confidence is still a step above “no confidence at all” in TV, newspapers, and radio, which totals up to 38% of U.S. adults. It is worth mentioning that this is the first time the percentage of U.S. adults with no trust at all in the media is higher than the percentage with a “fair amount” or “great deal” combined.
How AI’s Presence Affects Media Trust
The increased usage of articial intelligence has caused many people to fear that what they see is misinformation and they often cite difficulty in determining what is true and what is not, particularly if they decided to fact-check themselves.
While older adults are skeptical of the reliability of the information, it turns out that younger adults unfortunately are less engaged in election news in the first place due to their own lack of confidence in the news. With a trained eye, individuals can still be able to tell if news articles are written entirely by AI or if pictures are doctored, but the majority of Americans will not be able to see the difference between articles written by humans and articles written by AI such as ChatGPT. Ironically, finding articles written about AI might even sometimes be generated by AI themselves, displaying the level of confusion that permeates the news and providing a good reason for Americans to have distrust in it.
Division Along Party Lines
Data shows that around 82% of Democrats and 76% of Republicans desire national media coverage of candidates' stances on important social issues and policies. Additionally, 81% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans desire media coverage that touches on their candidates’ character and values. Independents do not have nearly as much of an interest in wanting national media to cover all aspects of elections compared to the two main political parties.
Across the board, older Democrats and Republicans simply have higher trust in the media than younger people, possibly due to older U.S. adults having been through a longer period of time where AI didn’t even exist and news was almost always taken at face value.
Reporting on News Preferences
Journalists are bound to find conflicting information about media confidence among Democrats and Republicans. When researching specific percentages on data collected about how much Republicans and Democrats trust the media, journalists will likely find conflicting information. The best course of action is to compare multiple articles and look for the most consistent data. Being well versed in AI and how AI-generated articles look is also helpful, because any research on a subject will often lead to articles written entirely by a bot.
Journalists should be prepared for this election to be more chaotic than any before due to the sheer amount of misinformation that will have to be sorted through. Thankfully journalists can determine the patterns within AI-generated content with just a little practice.
