New Poll Reveals Americans' Distrust for Mainstream Media's Coverage of Israel

JERUSALEM, Israel – A new survey found that 40% of Americans and almost 60% of US evangelicals don’t trust the mainstream media’s reporting on Israel, suggesting that many are looking for news sources about the Middle East they can trust.

The poll, commissioned by ALL ISRAEL NEWS and conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, asked 1,000 American adults how they view the mainstream media’s reporting of Israel.

According to the poll, 30% percent of Americans surveyed said they trust mainstream media outlets’ coverage.

Less than half Americans (40%) say they don’t trust the media or are angry with the coverage and are looking for alternative news sources. Thirty percent of individuals in this group say their distrust comes from their belief that the media is “unfair, dishonest and biased against Israel.”

Eighteen percent say they are simply angry with media’s reporting and are looking for other news sources, while 20% don’t know how they feel about the mainstream media’s coverage of Israel.

American evangelicals showed a deeper mistrust of the media.

Surveyors found that just 25.6% of evangelicals trust the reporting. More than half (57.4%) say they do not trust the mainstream media or are angry with its reporting and are looking for alternative news sources. Of this group, their mistrust comes from the belief that the coverage is too often “unfair, dishonest, and biased against Israel.”

Eighteen percent are angry and looking for a news source they trust about Israel while 17% say they don’t know how they feel about the mainstream media’s reporting.

Meanwhile, American Jews showed a greater trust for the mainstream media’s reporting on topics affecting the Jewish state.

Nearly half (47.4%) say they trust mainstream coverage while (50.8%) say they distrust the reporting.

Twenty percent of people in the group that distrusts the media say it’s because they believe the reporting is dishonest and biased against Israel.

Thirty percent are angry at the news coverage and are looking for alternative sources, while 1.8% said they don’t know how they feel about the mainstream media’s reporting.

Middle East analyst and editor-in-chief of ALL ISRAEL NEWS Joel Rosenberg writes that the poll represents 46 million Americans “of all religions, races and regions wish they could find a credible, honest, trustworthy alternative source of news and analysis regarding Israel and the Middle East.”

The survey has a 3% margin of error and 95% confidence interval.