Which news sources do Americans trust the most and least in 2025?

Which news sources do Americans trust the most and least in 2025?

Nearly five months into President Donald Trump’s second term, trust in the American news media is sharply divided, with deep partisan and generational splits shaping where Americans turn for information — and how much they believe what they hear.

A new YouGov study, based on a May survey of 2,211 U.S. adults, reveals that — aside from The Weather Channel — few news outlets earn high marks from both Democrats and Republicans. The survey was conducted May 11-12 via YouGov’s online market research panel of nearly 7 million Americans.

Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to trust the news in general, as well as to trust most of the specific outlets included in YouGov’s 2025 poll. Democrats and Republicans find common ground on sources for financial news, but hold vastly different opinions on most other news sources, including the two used by the most Americans: CNN and Fox News.

The most and least trusted news sources

Like in last year’s survey, YouGov asked Americans in 2025 whether they find news from each of 52 outlets very trustworthy, trustworthy, untrustworthy, very untrustworthy, or neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy. Using these results, researchers calculated each outlet’s net trust score — that is, how much more likely Americans are to say the outlet’s news is trustworthy or very trustworthy than untrustworthy or very untrustworthy.

By this measure, The Weather Channel remains top ranked as the most trusted news source, as it was in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Americans are 49 percentage points more likely to call The Weather Channel trustworthy than they are to call it untrustworthy — up from +43 last year. Like last year, The Weather Channel is followed by two public broadcasters: the BBC (+26) and PBS (+25).

By far the least-trusted outlet included in the YouGov poll is the National Enquirer (-37, better than -44 last year, when it also ranked last for trust). The outlets trusted least besides the Enquirer are, like last year, Infowars (-15) and Breitbart News (-7).

Trust in news increases post-election year

Average net trust in news outlets increased slightly this year — to +8 from +4 in 2024 — after a move in the opposite direction last year from 2023. Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say they trust the news in general. For 44 of the 52 outlets asked about (85%), a greater share of Democrats trust than distrust them. That’s true for only 21 outlets among Republicans (40%).

While both Democrats and Republicans generally are more likely to trust certain television news sources over print or online outlets, they differ on which TV sources they place their trust in. Democrats have the most trust in PBS, BBC, and NBC, while Republicans particularly trust Fox News, Fox Business Channel, and Newsmax.

There is little overlap in the sources that Democrats and Republicans find most trustworthy — other than The Weather Channel, which is more trusted than not on both sides of the aisle. 27% of news outlets surveyed have net positive trust among members of both parties, up from 13% last year, ahead of a presidential election. Many outlets with net positive trust among people in both parties are focused — at least in name — on the economy or financial news: Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Business Insider, and the Economist.

There is even less partisan overlap on the specific news outlets Americans distrust. Only one outlet is considered more untrustworthy than trustworthy by both Democrats and Republicans: the National Enquirer.

CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News are the most politically polarizing outlets. Net trust in CNN is 80 points higher among Democrats than among Republicans, and net trust in MSNBC is 77 points higher. Net trust in Fox News is 76 points higher among Republicans than among Democrats.

In addition to having more trust in CNN, Democrats also place far more trust than Republicans do in ABC (75-point difference in net trust), CBS (73 points), NBC (71 points), PBS (71 points), and NPR (65 points).

Beyond their higher trust in Fox News, Republicans have higher net trust than Democrats do in Fox Business (66-point difference), OAN (36 points), and Newsmax (36 points).

Among Democrats, average net trust in the outlets asked about in the survey increased 3 percentage points from last year, to +28 from +25. The largest increases in net trust among Democrats are for Al Jazeera (10-point increase in net trust), Bloomberg (10-point increase), and the Associated Press (8-point increase).

There was a 7-point increase in Republicans’ average net trust in the outlets surveyed, to -1, from -8 last year. The outlets with the biggest increases in net trust among Republicans are Fox News, CNN, Yahoo News, Comedy Central, MSNBC, ESPN, The Weather Channel, and the Los Angeles Times — by between 12 and 18 points each.

People who have recently used each outlet for news are more likely than Americans overall to consider it to be trustworthy. For outlets that 100 or more respondents say they have used in the past month, average net trust among recent users of each outlet is 55 points higher than average net trust among all Americans.

Among the outlets for which this gap is largest are OAN (+79 net trust among recent users vs. -2 for Americans overall), Al Jazeera (+75 vs. -3), and Fox Business Channel (+77 vs. +2). These differences could have several causes, including that people tend not to use news they don’t trust and that users are more familiar with news sources’ trustworthiness.

YouTube is the most trusted social media news source

Even though many Americans consume news from social media — 76% named at least one of the platforms listed on the survey as a source for their news in the past months — most specific platforms are viewed by more Americans as untrustworthy than trustworthy. YouTube (+12 net trust) and LinkedIn (+4) are regarded slightly more highly than others. The least trusted social media platforms asked about are TikTok (-26), Facebook (-22), and Snapchat (-21).

Truth Social and X are the most politically polarizing platforms: Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to trust each of them. Among Republicans, Truth Social is tied with YouTube as the most trusted social media platform, but among Democrats, it ranks as the least trusted. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to trust most other social media platforms.

Trust in news on social media platforms has increased over the past year, to an average of -10 across platforms from an average of -16 in 2024. This is largely due to increasing trust among Republicans; average net trust rose 14 points, to -3 from -17 in 2024. Republican trust has risen most in YouTube, X, Facebook, and Instagram. The largest shift among Democrats has been on their trust in news from X, which is now -35, down from -20 in 2024 and from -5 in 2023, when it was Twitter.

Americans are divided by age far more because of their trust in news from social media than for their trust in other sources of news. Adults under 45 are more trusting of news on social media platforms than older adults are — especially news from TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, and X. The higher levels of trust in X and Truth Social among younger adults is striking because older adults are more likely than younger ones to be Republicans.

YouGov’s annual study also explored generational differences in where Americans get their news and how the news makes them feel.

This story was produced by YouGov and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.