Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Most Trusted Name In News

...and it's not FOX, as Tom Jensen and the gang at Public Policy Polling reveal:

PPP's annual look at the public's trust in various TV news outlets finds that Fox News' credibility is on the decline, that the traditional networks are seeing an up tick in their numbers, and that PBS is at the top of the heap.

Here's how they stack up from highest net trust to worst:


Outlet
Trust/Distrust
Net
2010 Numbers
Shift from 2010
PBS
50/30
+20
Not Included
Not Applicable
NBC
41/41
0
35/44 (-9)
+9
CNN
40/43
-3
39/41 (-2)
-1
Fox News
42/46
-4
49/37 (+12)
-16
CBS
36/43
-7
32/46 (-14)
+7
ABC
35/43
-8
31/46 (-15)
+7

-A year ago a plurality of Americans said they trusted Fox News. Now a plurality of them don't. Conservatives haven't moved all that much- 75% said they trusted it last year and 72% still do this time around. But moderates and liberals have both had a strong increase in their level of distrust for the network- a 12 point gain from 48% to 60% for moderates and a 16 point gain from 66% to 82% for liberals. Voters between left and center tend to be more trusting of the media across the board, which is why a fair number of them were still rating Fox favorably even a year ago at this time. But it looks like with a lot of those folks it has finally crossed the line to being too political to trust.

 Took only a year, I see.  Other important findings:

African-Americans overwhelming trust all the news sources in the poll...except for FOX at just 25%.   Hispanics are pretty blase' about the news, and Whites don't trust anything but FOX and PBS...and even that's just 46%.

There are a lot of folks in the "Not Sure" category, ranging anywhere from 12 to 20+%, meaning that the news networks do have "swing votes" to work with on earning back trust.  This was true whether you divided by political philosophy, party affiliation, age, race, or gender.

Independents don't trust anyone, it seems.  Conservatives only trust FOX, liberals everyone but.

Women are far more trusting of news networks than men...except for a general slight dislike of FOX by both.

Seems rather interesting, especially the fact that African-Americans trust news far more than other Americans.

1 comment:

  1. Typical Conservative MoronJanuary 20, 2011 at 6:44 PM

    Why, this just proves what a great job Fox is doing! Liberals trust the rest of the media because it's liberal, just like them! And, and, uh... you're a racist for mentioning black people!

    ReplyDelete