There are three major cable news stations – Fox, CNN and MSNBC – and three major networks – CBS, NBC and ABC. All of them present news and analysis.
So which ones are most – and least – trusted by the viewing public?
Well, keeping in mind that there are excellent reasons to be skeptical of political polling (and trust of news sources certainly fits within this category), the nonpartisan Rasmussen organization has just put out a study addressing this question.
Here, from Paul Bedard’s article for the Washington Examiner (with apologies to Mr. Bedard for posting the entire article – which is too short to excerpt), are the results:
In one of the most unexpected and ground-shaking changes on the media landscape, the three biggest cable TV news outlets are trusted more than the Big Three networks, and it’s not even close.
Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC all topped ABC, NBC, and CBS in trust, with Fox king of the hill, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports survey shared with Secrets.
Remarkably, said the pollster, the trust gap is huge between cable and network news, ranging from double to quadruple.
All told, about 70% of the public trusts some news outlet. Nearly 30% said they trust none or just don’t know.
Here are the responses to which news outlet likely voters trust most:
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- Fox News 25%.
- CNN 13%.
- MSNBC 12%.
- NBC 7%.
- ABC 7%.
- CBS 6%.
- None 25%.
- Don’t know 4%.
Possibly driving the lack of trust in TV news is the view of voters that the media is biased and getting worse at hiding it.
In the words of Arte Johnson’s character from the old Laugh-In show: Interesting. Verrry interesting.
So the good news for Fox is that it doubles CNN and MSNBC, its two competitors. But, on the other side of the coin, since Fox is the only leans-right/Republican alternative of the three, while CNN (leans left/Democrat and MSNBC (way left) split the rest of cable news trust, the two sides, politically speaking, are about equal.
The most amazing part to me is how low NBC, ABC and CBS are. Trust for these three networks – all of which lean left/Democrat – is through a trap door.
And then there is that 25% of the population which doesn’t trust any of them.
So what does this all mean? That’s for you decide.
Happy analyzing…
