This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge. 

Good news is hard to come by in this late-stage American empire, but a new poll offers a ray of hope, finding that Americans’ trust and confidence in mass media is at an all-time low.

Only 31% of Americans have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of trust in mass media “when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly,” according to a Gallup poll conducted in early September. A greater number of Americans — 36% — say they have no trust at all.  

Going back to when Gallup first asked the question in 52 years ago, trust was highest in 1976, topping out at 72% — more than double current levels. Meanwhile, the percentage expressing complete distrust has soared from single digits in ’76.

Time and time again, mass media has fully earned those low marks — from cultivating the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, promoting the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, echoing false narratives undergirding the unscientific, tyrannical, and ultimately disastrous Covid regime, and covering up President Biden’s mental collapse, just to name a few. Social media has likely played a role, as it often provides Americans with information that contradicts mass media narratives — or provides information that mass media ignores altogether.

Far fewer Republicans than Democrats have a great deal or fair amount of trust in media, by a 12% to 54% margin. However, even Democrats’ trust has fallen significantly, from 76% during the Trump presidency. Expect that number to keep falling as older Democrats die off. “Young Democrats trust the media far less than older Democrats do: 31% of Democrats aged 18 to 29 versus 74% of those aged 65 and older have a great deal or fair amount of confidence,” reports Gallup.

By a thin margin, mass media is the least trusted of 10 major civic and political institutions evaluated in the Gallup survey, edging out the US Congress, in which only 34% of Americans have a fair or high degree of trust and confidence. State and local governments had the best showing.

Gallup grimly sums up the situation as a “crisis of confidence,” but we find rising distrust in untrustworthy institutions profoundly heartwarming.