In 2025, thirty-five percent of adult Americans say they follow the news, “all or most of the time”, that’s down from 51 percent in 2016. American Spectator’s Editor and News Max Contributor, Jeffrey Lord, points to overexposure.
Going back to the days of Walter Cronkite interrupting the day's tv programming to announce the death of John F. Kennedy Jr., Lord recalls getting the news after he was let out of school at 2:30pm that day. He says this was a time TV news was one of 2 news sources including the written newspaper. “The number one problem is the technology. It’s there- so people respond or correspondingly- they don’t respond, because they’re sick of hearing this stuff all the time. It’s just sort of there. They just don’t go there." Lord said.
In addition, Republican trust in the media has decreased compared to the Democrats. The Pew Research reports show the Republican level of trust was 57 percent in 2016 dropping 21 points to 37 percent. Compared to the Democrat level of trust sitting at 49 percent in 2016 to 39 percent in 2025- dropping 10 points.
“I think this has been building for a very long time. They see the media as instinctively anti-Republican. It doesn’t make any difference whether the president is Reagan or one of the Bush’s, or now Donald Trump. They just simply don’t trust it and that’s a real problem for the media.” He said.
The American Spectator editor says the conservative voice was non-existent until the National Review Magazine founded in 1955.
“It all started with Bill Buckley, slowly, it just built and built and built, and wow- today- it’s just mammoth.” Lord said.
The longtime political author and commentator points to history surrounding John F. Kennedy in 1960. He recalls the beginning of this kind of sentiment in the media, when author, Teddy White, started a publication, “The Press of the Day” as he followed JFK during his presidential campaign, and how they felt they were “soldiers of the Lord and servers of the new frontier” in 1960. He says it’s more than multiplied 66 years later and it’s even worse. Lord adds the American people aren’t stupid and they see this kind of double standard behavior in media.
With more news outlets such as News Max, Breitbart, News Nation and Fox News, it took over 6 decades to evolve to a more even playing field allowing the Republican party and conservatives a platform that took over half a decade to build.