The media has lost credibility with Republican voters--92 % think media writes false stories

Evan Siegfried:

Members of the media were shocked as he was supposedly revealed as incredibly anti-woman presidential candidate, perhaps even the most ever nominated by a major political party in the modern era. He had admitted that he reduced women to objects and the Democrats pounced, seeking to make him lose him the support of women and, in turn, the presidency.

I'm not talking about the media coverage of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and the "Access Hollywood" tape, but his predecessor, Mitt Romney.

His sin? Saying that he had “binders full of women” that he was looking at appointing to key positions were he elected president. Sure, it was an awkward way of stating a fairly innocuous fact about how elected executives begin their transition efforts — with resumes of candidates for every position under the sun —- well before an election is held. Yet, the media and commentators came for Mitt Romney and they did so with guns blazing, as he was portrayed as an anti-woman extremist... for making a concerted effort to hire women to serve in his administration as governor of Massachusetts.

The entire ordeal is part of an ever-growing list of examples in which the media seemed to be biased, whether consciously or not, against Republicans.

Conservatives were rightly upset when at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, the USA Today editorial board parroted, almost verbatim, a claim of the then president’s that his administration had been scandal-free. While this was done by the editorial board of a major newspaper, the line was repeated by many journalists, including by NBC News’ Tom Brokaw, despite Republican investigations into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, the investigation into the ATF's Fast and Furious program and the investigation into the Obama Administration's federal guarantees for Solyndra, among others.

The lack of acknowledgement of actual scandals that were investigated by Congress perfectly encapsulated how the vast majority of the media would not challenge Obama and had a bit too much of a cozy relationship with him. There is nothing wrong with the White House press corps being friendly with a president or his aides (these things happen, especially since they are in constant contact with one another), but it crosses a line of journalistic integrity when that relationship impacts reporters' ability to provide objective coverage and challenge assertions made by an administration. They rightly hold Donald Trump to account — though some do so with a bit too much zeal.
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Americans in general have begun to catch on: 66 percent of Americans believe that the media has a hard time separating fact from opinion and, according to a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of the country believes that the press is biased one way or the other in their reporting.
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Donald Trump, however, was able to effectively weaponize people's distrust of the media, especially among his base. He and his supporters dismiss any news that does not portray him in a positive light, labeling it “fake news.” Trump received almost no pushback at all from the GOP base when he called the press the “enemy of the people.” A June 2018 Axios/SurveyMonkey poll revealed that 92 percent of Republicans believe that the media intentionally reports false stories.
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It is ironic that the term "fake news" originated with teh media description of posts in Facebook supportive of Trump.  He turned it around on them and weaponized it.  But Republicans were already distrustful because of the stories like the one about Mitt Romney. 

During the campaign leading up to the 2016 election reporters at both the NY Times and Washington Post said that Trump was so scary that they did not need to be fair when reporting on him.  Now they are stuck with that characterization of their own reporting and negative stories about the President are seen as just another unfair attack.  This has led to ever higher levels of hysteria by the media that further erode trust. 

That is why their seemingly weekly snit fits over "snatching children from the arms if immigrants" Or the alleged "Putin control" of Trump are quickly rejected by GOP voters.  The media has done this to itself and does not seem to be able to stop.  The Never-Trumpers on the right made the same mistake.