Many Trump Supporters Back Calling Out Offensive Remarks

While Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been criticizing the media for reporting on statements he made about groping women, more (49%) of Trump supporters say the news media should emphasize a candidate's "offensive statements" than say they should not (45%).

Supporters of Hillary Clinton, who have been having a field day with Trump comments, were even more enthusiastic about reporting offensive comments, with 72% saying they should be reported, while only 26% said they should not.

Of course, it is up to the individual to decide which remarks they conclude are offensive and deserve calling out.

That is according to a Pew survey of 3,616 registered voters (1,396 were Trump supporters, 1,775 were Clinton supporters) polled Sept. 27-Oct. 10. The margin of error for the Trump supporters were 4.7 percentage points and 4.2 percentage points for Clinton fans.

The respondents also overwhelmingly thought the media should call out candidates for false statements. More than four out of five Clinton supporters (83%) said that the media should "emphasize inaccurate statements," while only 16% said they should not. Almost as many Trump supporters (71%) said they should call out inaccuracies, while 25% said no.

On that subject, the majority (53%) of Trump supporters say it is a major responsibility of the news media to fact-check candidates, while only 24% say that is a minor responsibility and 10% say not their responsibility at all.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.