By Jason Schwatrz | POLITICO
A new study on the news media in the United States, released on Tuesday by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, finds many familiar if unsettling trends: Americans have a negative view of the media, believe coverage is more biased than ever and are sharply divided in their views along partisan lines.
Those findings reflect continuations of longstanding trends. One finding, though, was unique to the Trump era: Americans are so polarized that they cannot even agree on the definition of “fake news.”
Democrats, the study found, hew more closely to the original definition of the phrase that emerged after the 2016 election, referring to fabricated news stories that are intended to deceive.
Republicans, on the other hand, are more likely to have also adopted the meaning that President Donald Trump has ascribed to the term, which he often tags on stories that he dislikes, regardless of whether or not they are factual.
