Fact-Checking Declines as Trust in Institutions Erodes in the US

By Staff, Agencies

The United States’ focus on countering misinformation and disinformation is fading, as public skepticism towards once-trusted institutions grows.

Fact-checking, which gained prominence during Donald Trump’s first term, has since become deeply politicized, leading to waning enthusiasm for monitoring false information.

According to Pew Research Center, Americans are now less supportive of efforts to police misinformation than they were just two years ago, a trend seen across party lines.

Public schools and news media, once central to shaping factual discourse, are facing record-low trust levels alongside financial difficulties.

The politicization of fact-checking has also led to a drop in the number of fact-checking sites globally, after years of growth.

Government efforts to combat misinformation are also being scaled back.

The State Department's Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office, which was tasked with countering foreign disinformation, is being dismantled, as confirmed by Secretary Marco Rubio. 

Additionally, the National Science Foundation has withdrawn research grants related to misinformation, signaling a broader retreat from institutional fact-checking initiatives.

A February YouGov poll revealed that 44% of Americans trust information from the Trump administration "a great deal" or "a fair amount," compared to just 28% for the news media. This gap has widened since 2017, when trust in both was more balanced.

Mentions of "misinformation" and "disinformation" on major cable networks such as MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN have sharply declined since the pandemic, according to Stanford’s Cable TV News Analyzer.