Report: Many See Exaggeration and Partisanship in COVID-19 News

As Americans continue to process a steady flow of information about the coronavirus outbreak, a new Pew Research Center analysis finds that among five key sources of COVID-19 information asked about, U.S. adults give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health organizations the highest rating when it comes to getting the facts about the pandemic right.

Donald Trump and his administration receive the lowest rating from the public on this measure.

Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) say the CDC and other public health organizations get the facts right “almost all” or “most” of the time when it comes to the coronavirus outbreak, while about half as many (30%) say the same about Trump and his administration. There are also sharp partisan divides on these measures.

The survey of 9,654 U.S. adults conducted June 4-10, 2020, as part of the Center’s American News Pathways project, also examines how Americans’ attitudes have changed over the past three months when it comes to news and information about the virus. The analysis finds that from late April to early June, the share of Americans who say the coronavirus outbreak “has been made a bigger deal than it really is” increased from about three-in-ten (29%) to nearly four-in-ten (38%). This increase is particularly stark among Republicans and those who lean to the Republican Party: Just under half (47%) said this in late April, compared with nearly two-thirds (63%) in early June. The share of Democrats and Democratic leaners who say the outbreak has been exaggerated increased just slightly in this time frame, from 14% to 18%.

While the overwhelming majority of Americans (86%) continue to follow news about the outbreak at least “fairly” closely, the share of Americans who say they are following news about the coronavirus outbreak “very” closely continues to decline. Nearly six-in-ten U.S. adults were “very” closely following COVID-19 news (57%) in late March, but as of early June, only about four-in-ten (39%) say the same. (This is roughly the same percentage as the share of U.S. adults in June who said they were “very” closely following news of the protests following the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a white police officer during an arrest.)

Among the report’s other key findings:

• Compared with the first weeks of the outbreak, Americans report seeing more partisan viewpoints in news about COVID-19, and some are struggling to know what is true. About four-in-ten U.S. adults (41%) say news about the outbreak is now more partisan than at the start, while fewer say partisanship in coronavirus news has declined (22%). A plurality of U.S. adults (38%) say they now find it harder to identify “what is true and what is false about the outbreak,” while three-in-ten say they are finding this easier to do. Another 31% say the difficulty of parsing truth from fiction has not changed.
• A greater share of Republicans and Republican leaners (47%) than Democrats and Democratic leaners (31%) say it is harder now to identify “what is true and what is false.” But roughly equal shares of both parties say they are seeing more partisan viewpoints in news about the outbreak now than they were in the initial weeks of the pandemic (43% of Republicans and 41% of Democrats).
• Fully 71% of Americans say they have heard at least “a little” about a conspiracy theory that the coronavirus outbreak was intentionally planned by powerful people, including 19% who say they have heard “a lot” about this. Roughly three-in-ten U.S. adults (28%) say they have not heard about this unsubstantiated claim.
• Of those U.S. adults who have heard at least something about this conspiracy theory, 36% say it is “definitely” or “probably” true – equating to a quarter of all U.S. adults. Most of these respondents, however, do not go so far as to say it is “definitely” true (8% of those who have heard about it say this, or 5% of all Americans).
• Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to have heard about this conspiracy theory, but Republicans are more likely to think there is some truth to it. About half of Republicans who have heard about it (47%) believe that there is some truth to the theory that the outbreak was intentionally planned – equivalent to 34% of all Republicans say that it is “definitely” or “probably” true. Only about half as many Democrats who have heard of the conspiracy theory (25%, or 18% of all Democrats) share this view.
• Americans’ assessments of this conspiracy theory also differ substantially based on the sources of information they turn to most for news about the outbreak. Among Americans who have heard the claim that powerful people planned the pandemic and mainly rely on Trump and the White House task force for COVID-19 news, 56% say the conspiracy theory is “probably” or “definitely” true. Americans who have heard this conspiracy theory and rely most on other sources of news are less likely to say this, including those who rely on local news outlets (42% who have heard of the theory think it is likely true), state and local officials (32%), public health organizations (25%) and national news outlets (22%). Those who rely mainly on national news outlets and are aware of the theory are most likely to say the theory is “probably” or “definitely” not true (68%).

The survey was conducted June 4-10, 2020, among 9,654 U.S. adults on Pew Research Center’s online, nationally representative American Trends Panel. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points. Visit our data tool to dig deeper into related survey questions.

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