President-elect Donald Trump talks with Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence during a press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Jan. 11. Justin Lane / EPA
On the opposite side of the ideological spectrum, only 6 percent of Republicans said the media had not been tough enough, as compared to 49 percent of Democrats.
This is a clear contrast to a poll Gallup conducted in January 2009 during Obama’s first days in office, which found that nearly half of Americans believed the media’s coverage of the Obama administration was “about right.”
How the press has covered Trump has become nearly as large a story as the administration’s unorthodox way of handling issues itself. The president and one of his closest advisers have gone so far as to call the press “the opposition party” and the administration has been swift to criticize journalists and media organizations.
Gallup conducted the poll Jan. 30-31 and used a random sample of 1,018 adults. The margin of error is 4 percent.
