The Rise of Alternative Media
Americans, as a whole, have less faith in the traditional mainstream-media institutions than ever.
Newspaper circulation is declining. Viewership for all of the big TV news channels is plummeting. Government media outlets such as NPR and NPT are losing viewers and listeners as well. Statistics vary, but polls generally demonstrate that barely one-third of Americans have a high amount of trust in the mainstream media. Nearly 40 percent of Americans polled have zero trust in the mainstream media.
That said, Americans are not giving up on media altogether; they are increasingly turning to “alternative” media outlets, made accessible by the rise of the internet. Americans get their news from social-media platforms such as X and Facebook, from video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok, and from podcasts and other news websites not included among the big legacy media. The New American — both print and online — is an example of an alternative-media source.
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