President Donald J. Trump, joined by VP Mike Pence and members of the WH Coronavirus Task Force, takes questions from reporters during a coronavirus update briefing Monday, March 16, 2020, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official WH Photo by Tia Dufour)

As we’ve documented extensively here at RedState, the national media’s coverage of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has been nothing short of atrocious and highly political in nature, which is not at all what we need at a time when the American people are seeking answers as to what’s going on, when relief is coming, and what to do.

While the MSM’s goal appears to be to damage Trump at a time when some in the media have expressed concern that his handling of the Wuhan coronavirus issue makes him look more presidential in an election year, a new poll released this week indicates the media’s tactics are reflecting more poorly on them than Trump:

A Monday poll from Monmouth University shows that Americans are giving the media a lower performance approval than President Trump amid the global coronavirus crisis.

According to the poll, 50 percent of Americans said President Trump has done a “good job” with his handling of the coronavirus outbreak while 45 percent said he has done a “bad job.”

However, there’s a much more narrow split among those polled on the media’s job performance. According to the poll, just 45 percent of Americans said the media did a good job reporting on the outbreak while 43 percent said the opposite. Roughly 10 percent of those polled responded with “mixed, depends.”

The poll also showed that governors and public health officials received the highest marks:

NATIONAL POLL: Who has handled #COVID19 outbreak best?

GOOD JOB/BAD JOB
72%/18% – Governors
65%/24% – Federal health agencies
50%/45% – @realDonaldTrump
42%/37% – Congress
45%/43% – Media
38%/45% – American publichttps://t.co/Y1uXyHPMsm

— MonmouthPoll (@MonmouthPoll) March 23, 2020

The rankings in this poll largely match up with one taken by Axios last week in which the vast majority of respondents said they trust local, state, and federal government leaders including public health officials more than they do the media when it comes to delivering reliable information on what’s happening.