Poll: Media's role in democracy questioned

Almost a third of Republicans in Texas identified the news media as the greatest internal threat to democracy, and less than half of all Texans agreed that the media's freedom to criticize political leaders is very important, according to a Texas Lyceum Poll released Wednesday.

"Historically, we think of the media as being a critical piece of democracy, but in this era and in this time, Republican partisans, but to some extent partisans on both sides, are beginning to see the media itself as somehow antithetical to democratic practice, and that is a major departure from at least a century of our understanding of the role of the news media in democracy," said Texas Lyceum's research director Joshua Blank.

Of 10 democratic values tested — including checks and balances, free and open elections, losers accepting the legitimacy of electoral winners, the right to participate in nonviolent protests and hold unpopular opinions — the freedom of news organizations to criticize political leaders was viewed as the least vital. About 45% of respondents said it's very important, and 24% said it's somewhat important, the poll found.

"What we’ve seen is a move away from criticizing the media in terms of bias in what the news media choose to cover or how the news media choose to present otherwise factual information" to a deeper judgment in which "news media as a whole, particular news outlets, and even individual journalists, are criticized almost reflexively as liars under the banner of fake news," Blank said. He added that the shorthand “fake news” assertion, popularized by President Donald Trump, implies that "the media can't be trusted, and if the media can't be trusted, how essential is it really to democracy?"

The 2019 Texas Lyceum Poll of 1,200 Texas adults was conducted from Aug. 16 to 25. It has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.83 percentage points. The poll relies on live interviewers and contacting respondents both by landline and on cellphones.

 For the first time in its history, the Lyceum Poll focused on attitudes toward democracy.

While 82% of respondents believe democracy is the best form of government, 61% support major reforms to better fulfill its objectives. The older the voters, the more strongly they express faith in democracy. In contrast, only 32% of adults under 30 share that level of conviction. That same percentage of Texans under 30 thought it was very important for news organizations to be free to criticize political leaders — the lowest percentage for any age category.

Respondents were more worried about internal than external threats to democracy, and while most respondents named money in politics as the greatest internal threat, there was a sharp partisan divide: 29% of Republicans cited the news media as the greatest internal threat — followed by money in politics at 20% and uninformed voters at 18% — while 36% of Democrats cited money in politics, followed by 18% who pointed fingers to poorly prepared candidates and 14% to uninformed voters.

Natalie Stroud, a University of Texas communication studies professor, said the Lyceum results suggest an intensification of an old story.

"Traditionally, and for many decades now, Republicans have registered less trust in the media compared to Democrats," Stroud said. "Attacking the media is a tried and true political strategy for quite some time. It's not surprising to see political leaders continue to use something that is proven to work in the past."

Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M University communications professor who is writing a book on Trump's rhetoric, said, "The results of the Lyceum Poll mirror the results nationwide."

"America is facing a crisis of distrust, polarization, and frustration with government. This crisis has been building for at least a decade, but goes back to the mid-1990s," Mercieca said. "Trump didn't cause the crisis, but he has taken advantage of it by attacking the American public sphere repeatedly since 2015. It was the dominant theme of his campaign. We were weakened by distrust, polarization and frustration, and he has sought, at every turn, to make it worse."

Democrats in the Lyceum survey were significantly more likely than Republicans — 69% to 28% — to view attempts by Russia or other foreign countries to influence the U.S. presidential election as a major problem.

The Lyceum Poll also found far more common ground on some voting issues than the political debate in the state might suggest, with most Texans backing both heightening security at the ballot box and broadening access to it.

Eighty-three percent of Texans would support requiring electronic voting machines to provide a paper ballot backup; 80% support automatically updating and removing duplicate voters from registration lists; and 81% back requiring voters to present a government-issued ID when voting, which is required by law in Texas since 2013 but has been the target of bitter objections from Democrats and civil rights groups who say the requirement is intended to reduce minority turnout.

At the same time, a smaller but still significant majority of Texans support measures to expand voting. Sixty-seven percent support allowing convicted felons to vote after serving their sentences, 63% supporting making Election Day a national holiday, 62% back automatically registering eligible citizens to vote, and 61% would allow people to register on Election Day.