A new study finds that when Republican politicians attack local news outlets, public trust in those outlets drops significantly. The study, published in PS: Political Science & Politics, shows that these attacks are especially effective among Republican voters, but also negatively impact Democrats’ and Independents’ views of their local newspapers.
Prior research has established that attacks on the news media by politicians and pundits are a substantial part of the trend of declining trust in media, and that the public evaluates the media more negatively and perceives greater news coverage bias after encountering criticism of news organizations from a communicator they trust. Past studies also show that media criticism is most frequently supplied by Republican politicians and conservative pundits.
However, these studies tend to focus on national news outlets or the concept of “the media” in general, rather than local news. This study aimed to examine whether local news is more resilient to attacks from politicians, or if its current high levels of trust are simply due to a lack of direct criticism. The researchers behind the new study, Allison M. N. Archer and Erik Peterson, focused on criticism from Republican politicians because prior research, as well as their own analysis, has shown that they are more likely than Democratic politicians to attack the media.
“Though trust in national news has declined over the years, trust in local news remains relatively high,” explained Archer, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston.
“At the same time, politicians increasingly attack news outlets, and Erik and I had both seen this happen at the local level. We wanted to understand how often local news outlets were being attacked and more importantly, what that means for trust in local news. Considering people’s strong community ties to local media outlets, it was possible that those existing relationships prevented politicians’ attacks from resonating with folks.”
To examine the effects of politicians’ attacks on local news, the researchers conducted a survey experiment with 3,653 participants. These participants were recruited from two different online platforms: Prolific and CloudResearch Prime Panel. The Prolific sample was selected to match the general U.S. population in terms of age, sex, and race/ethnicity, while the CloudResearch sample was selected to have equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans.
All participants in the study read a (made-up) press release from a Republican politician in their state. The participants were randomly assigned to either a treatment group or a control group. Those in the control group read a press release where the politician discussed the importance of registering to vote. Those in the treatment group read a press release where the politician attacked a local newspaper, claiming it published biased coverage, ignored important issues, and endorsed candidates who were bad for the community.
The specific politician and newspaper mentioned in the press release varied depending on the participant’s state of residence, and were chosen to make the scenario as realistic as possible. For example, participants from Wisconsin in the treatment group saw an attack on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by Senator Ron Johnson, an outlet he had previously attacked.
The researchers then tested how these fabricated press releases affected participants’ views of both the local newspaper and the politician mentioned. They also examined whether the effects differed depending on the participant’s political party and how familiar they were with the local newspaper.
The researchers found that attacks from Republican politicians had a significant negative effect on the reputation of the local newspaper. Participants who read the press release with the attack rated the newspaper’s reputation much lower than those in the control group. The attack also reduced participants’ stated intention to use the newspaper in the future, although this effect was smaller.
The effects of the attack were especially strong among Republican participants. Republicans who saw the attack rated the local newspaper much lower than Democrats and Independents who saw the same attack. In fact, after seeing the attack, Republicans’ views of the local newspaper were similar to their views of national news outlets like CNN, which are generally viewed much less favorably and with greater partisan division.
In the control group, local newspapers were rated on average at 56 points on a 100-point scale, a sign of fairly positive sentiment. However, after exposure to the attack, Republican respondents’ ratings of the local newspaper dropped by 16 points.
The researchers also examined whether the attack affected participants’ views of the politician making the attack. They found that the attack slightly reduced support for the politician, and this effect was concentrated among Democrats and Independents. However, contrary to expectations, Republicans did not appear to either reward or punish the politician for attacking the local newspaper.
Finally, the researchers looked at whether the effects of the attack were different for people who were more familiar with the local newspaper. They found some evidence that the attack was less effective at reducing trust among those who were more familiar with the newspaper. However, even among those with high familiarity, the attack still significantly reduced trust. Surprisingly, the attack was actually more effective at reducing future intent to use the newspaper among those who were more familiar with it.
“We found that exposure to a Republican politician’s attack on a local news outlet reduces people’s trust in and willingness to read that newspaper,” Archer told PsyPost. “The effect is strongest among Republicans but still emerges for Democrats and Independents. Attacks on local news are not as common as those targeting national news but if critiques of local news escalate, the high levels of trust in local media outlets that we currently see are likely to be undermined.”
The researchers acknowledge that their study cannot directly address the effects of a Democrat criticizing local news, as it only focused on attacks from Republican politicians. However, the authors suggest that based on their findings, it is likely that Democratic criticism would also lower trust in local news, especially among Democratic voters. Future research could explore this possibility, as well as the potential for Democratic attacks to backfire and increase support for local news among Republicans.
The authors also note that their findings suggest that the current high levels of trust in local news may be due to the relative lack of attacks from politicians, rather than any inherent resilience to criticism. They suggest that future research should examine the factors that influence politicians’ decisions to attack or not attack local news, as these decisions have important implications for the future of trust in local news.
The study, “The Fragility of the Local News Trust Advantage: Evidence from Republican Attacks on Local News,” was published January 7, 2025.
