The majority of Americans agree that media scrutiny acts as a check on politicians

Pew Research Center graph, from Pew's American trends panel and center phone survey data.

Despite the somewhat contentious relationship many Americans have with news outlets, most citizens still agree that "media scrutiny keeps politicians from doing things they shouldn’t," reports Sarah Naseer on a Pew Research Center survey conducted and released this year. This opinion has remained a constant over the past 40 years, even as the government's majority party affiliations have changed.

The Pew Research Center began "asking Americans about the news media’s role in investigating and reporting on public officials to hold them accountable since the mid-1980s," Naseer explains. "That was about a decade after The Washington Post’s coverage of the Watergate scandal contributed to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974."

In Pew's 2024 survey, about "three-quarters of Americans (74%) said criticism from news organizations keeps political leaders from doing things that shouldn’t be done, while far fewer (24%) said this type of scrutiny keeps leaders from doing their job," Naseer reports. "The last time such a large share of Americans expressed the view that media criticism helps hold political leaders accountable was in 2016, just before (Donald) Trump was elected the first time."

The survey also asked respondents if "they see the news media as generally fair to all sides when reporting on politics and social issues, or if they think the media tend to favor one side," Naseer adds.
"About three-quarters of U.S. adults (77%) say news organizations tend to favor one side when presenting the news on political and social issues. Far fewer (22%) believe news organizations deal fairly with all sides. In surveys going back almost 40 years, most Americans have viewed news coverage as biased toward one side."

Throughout the survey's 40-year history, political parties have consistently held separate beliefs about media fairness, with Republicans more likely to see media as favoring one side more than Democrats. Naseer reports, "In this year's survey, about nine-in-ten Republicans (88%) say news organizations tend to favor one side when presenting the news on political and social issues, compared with 67% of Democrats."