Gallup News: “Americans’ perceptions of news media bias have increased significantly over the past generation. Thirty-two percent believe the news media are careful to separate fact from opinion, well below the 58% who held this view in 1984. Meanwhile, 66% currently agree that most news media do not do a good job of letting people know what is fact and what is opinion, up from 42%. These results are based on a new Gallup/Knight Foundation survey on trust, media and democracy. The large-scale mail survey of more than 19,000 U.S. adults was conducted Aug. 4-Oct. 2, 2017. The historical comparisons are based on a 1984 mail survey conducted by MORI Research for the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Additionally, the new Gallup/Knight survey finds nearly half of Americans, 45%, saying there is “a great deal” of political bias in news coverage. This represents a sharp increase compared with what other polls have measured on the same question in the past, including 25% in a 1989 Pew Research Center telephone survey and 37% in that firm’s most recent update, in 2012…”

• See also Opinion, John McCain, the Washington Post – “…President Trump does not seem to understand that his rhetoric and actions reverberate in the same way. He has threatened to continue his attempt to discredit the free press by bestowing “fake news awards” upon reporters and news outlets whose coverage he disagrees with. Whether Trump knows it or not, these efforts are being closely watched by foreign leaders who are already using his words as cover as they silence and shutter one of the key pillars of democracy. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 2017 was one of the most dangerous years to be a journalist. Last year, the organization documented 262 cases of journalists being imprisoned for their work. Reporters around the world face intimidation, threats of violence, harassment, persecution and sometimes even death as governments resort to brutal censorship to silence the truth…”
• and International press freedom groups to visit U.S. on unprecedented mission