Americans who voted for President Trump in 2016 trust the nation’s leading newspapers about as much as Infowars, the website published by right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, the results of a poll revealed Wednesday.
Conducted between Feb. 10 and 12 by YouGov for The Economist, the survey asked nearly 1,500 respondents to rate various print, television and online outlets as either very trustworthy, trustworthy, neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy, untrustworthy, or very untrustworthy.
Among the respondents who said they voted for Mr. Trump, 15 percent rated Infowars as either trustworthy or very trustworthy. More than half of Trump voters — 52 percent — described the site as neither trustworthy nor untrustworthy, while roughly a third — 32 percent — rated Infowars as either untrustworthy or very untrustworthy.
Compared to other outlets, Trump voters rated Infowars equally to both The New York Times and The Washington Post in terms of trustworthiness. Fifteen percent of the Trump voters polled described The Times as either trustworthy or very trustworthy, compared to 69 percent who rated the paper as either untrustworthy of very untrustworthy; 15 percent described The Post as either trustworthy or very trustworthy, meanwhile, compared to 64 percent who said untrustworthy of very untrustworthy.
Eleven percent of Trump voters described CNN as being trustworthy or very trustworthy — a sliver of the 64 percent who answered similarly in response to a question about Fox.
Launched in 1999 by Mr. Jones, a former public access television host, Infowars gained notoriety for publishing material peddling baseless claims involving topics ranging from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 to the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist that emerged in 2016.
More recently, Infowars made waves last year when internet platforms operated by companies including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Spotify and Apple banned accounts belonging to either the site or its publisher within a span of several weeks.
Content appearing Friday on the front page of Infowars included an article headlined “APPLE NOW DOMINATED BY SATANIC INFLUENCE TO SILENCE ALL THAT IS TRUE,” in addition to others that claimed to expose “liberal hypocrisy” and “deep corruption” within the federal government.
Seven percent of respondents who voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 rated Infowars as either trustworthy or very trustworthy, while 47 percent of Clinton voters described the site as either untrustworthy of very untrustworthy, according to the results. Forty-five percent of Clinton voters were undecided about the site, the results said.
Mr. Trump has regularly smeared mainstream outlets such as CNN as “fake news,” including as recently as late Friday morning during a White House press conference declaring a national emergency at the southern border.
Days earlier, a BBC cameraman was attacked by an attendee during a Trump rally Monday in El Paso, Texas.
Newsweek first reported Thursday on the poll’s results with respect to Infowars.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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