Republicans, Democrats now 34 points apart on media-freedom perception

A Gallup poll released Tuesday found that slightly more than two in three Americans now say U.S. news media have “a lot” of freedom — a new low and the lowest level recorded since the pollster began asking the question in 2010. The figure is down six percentage points from 2025’s previous low of 75%, reversing a 2022 reading of 86%. The decline has tracked a widening partisan divide that opened in 2025, with Democrats and independents driving the drop while Republican perceptions have moved in the opposite direction.

The U.S. perception of media freedom also no longer stands out among other advanced economies. For the first 15 years of the poll, U.S. readings outpaced those of the 38 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, among which median perceptions of media freedom have stayed around 80%, slightly lower than in the United States. In 2025, the two were tied. Now, “based on available data, the OECD median will be between 70% and 76%,” Gallup said, making 2026 “the first year on record in which the U.S. ranks below the bloc’s median.”

Domestically, the trend has continued in recent years. After reaching 86% in 2022 — comparable to earlier readings — the share of Americans saying media have a lot of freedom fell eight percentage points to 78% in 2023. It rebounded slightly in 2024, then began to fall again, dropping to 75% in 2025 and to a new low — slightly more than two in three — in 2026.

Gallup began reporting party identification in its press-freedom question in 2024, when the parties did not show a “meaningful” divide. That changed in 2025: perceived media freedom fell 22 points among Democrats and 5 points among independents, while the Republican figure rose 10 points, from 83% to 93%. In 2026, perception fell a further six points among Democrats and seven points among independents; among Republicans, there has been “little change,” Gallup said.

The result is a 34-point gap. “Now more than nine in 10 Republicans (91%) say the U.S. media have a lot of freedom, significantly higher than Democrats (57%) and political independents (68%),” Gallup reported.

Gallup surveyed 1,000 adults between May 1 and June 10, with a margin of error of 4 percentage points.