As newsrooms face coronavirus-related cuts, 54% of Americans rate medias response to the outbreak po
Many U.S. news organizations are covering the 
Opinions about the news media's response to the outbreak vary considerably depending on the 
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Among Democrats (including leaners), older people are much more likely than younger adults to have a positive impression of the media's coronavirus response. Around nine-in-ten Democrats ages 65 and older (89%) rate the media's response to the outbreak as excellent or good, compared with 82% of those ages 50 to 64, 65% of those ages 30 to 49 and only 42% of those ages 18 to 29. Among Republicans and GOP leaners, however, attitudes toward the media's handling of the coronavirus outbreak don't vary much by age. Across age groups, between 31% and 39% of Republicans say the media has been doing an excellent or good job responding to the outbreak.
Regardless of partisan identification, Americans generally are unaware of the financial struggles facing many local newsrooms, a late 2018 Pew Research Center survey found. In that survey, 72% of both Democrats and Republicans said their local news outlets were doing well financially. These views persisted even though only 16% of Democrats and 14% of Republicans said they personally had paid for local news within the past year, whether through a subscription, donation or membership.
These measures and more can be explored further in the Election News Pathways data tool, where all of the data associated with this project is available for public use. You can read more about public opinion of COVID-19 here.
Data in this analysis comes primarily from a survey conducted March 19-24, 2020. See the survey questions and methodology for this analysis, or access the dataset.
Acknowledgments: The Election News Pathways project was made possible by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew Research Center is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts, its primary funder. This initiative is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of a number of individuals and experts at Pew Research Center.
