Only 18 percent of the Americans surveyed expressed either a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in that news medium.

Gallup has been asking the following question annually since 1993: "Now I am going to read you a list of institutions in American society. Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one--a great deal, quite a lot, some or very little?"  (See Gallup Confidence Survey.pdf) One of the institutions listed is "television news."

In the latest survey, conducted June 5-8, only 10 percent said they had "a great deal" of confidence in T.V. news, and 8 percent said they had "quite a lot" of confidence.