Perceived Ethical Performance of News Media: Regaining Public Trust and Encouraging News Participation

As news media face declining levels of trust, research has suggested that partisans may differ in their views of news media. Depending on their ideological positions, partisans may have different perceptions of how faithfully news media adhere to journalistic norms. This study explores the intersections of ideology, perceived ethical performance of news media, trust in news media, and news participatory behaviors. Our analyses of data from a national representative survey of 452 respondents show that liberals are more likely than conservatives to perceive that news media operate ethically. More important, we found that liberals trust news media more than conservatives because of this evaluation. Our results also suggest that participation in news is positively related to ethical performance evaluations, which partly account for different levels of participation between conservatives and liberals. Implications for regaining media trust and encouraging participatory practices are discussed.