The headline of this survey was that Fox News hit a new low for trust. 46% of all Americans surveyed said that they did not trust Fox, compared to 41% who reported that they did trust the Rupert Murdock network.
However, what interests me more are the results broken down by political party. Not surprisingly, Republicans trust Fox while Democrats -44 (22/66) and independents -24 (32/56) don't. In fact, Republicans tend not to trust any news source other than Fox. Indeed, it is the intensity of the Republican commitment to Fox that makes it simultaneously the most mistrusted and the most trusted source for news.
What is more surprising are Democratic attitudes. If Democrats were a mirror image of Republicans, then you would expect them to trust MSNBC the most. MSNBC has embarked on a clear strategy designed to appeal to liberal viewers and opinion-based programming. However, the survey shows that Democrats rate MSNBC third behind NBC and far behind PBS.
- PBS +61 (72/11)
- NBC +45 (61/16)
- MSNBC +39 (58/19)
- Fox +55 (70/15)
- PBS at -21 (27/48)
- NBC -48 (18/66)
- CNN -49 (17/66)
- ABC -56 (14/70)
- MSNBC -56 (12/68)
- CBS -57 (15/72)
- Comedy Central -58 (8/66)
In the late 1980s there were of series of books published attempting to expose and criticize a liberal bias in higher education (The Closing of the American Mind, Illiberal Education, Tenured Radicals, etc.). At the time I was sympathetic to this critique because I sympathized with the thesis that all of these books shared. They argued that many professors in higher education--especially in the humanities--had abandoned the very concept of objective truth and politically neutral scholarly excellence. Furthermore, once you abandon those standards higher education becomes little more than an exercise in vocational training and political indoctrination.
It is ironic and more than a little depressing that the conservative media movement that began in the early 1990s has embraced as their own an idea that they used to condemn in almost apocalyptic terms. True, academia and the media are not the same, but the quality of both depend upon a fair and accurate investigation, analysis, and reporting of information. Goose sauce meet gander sauce.
I think this is also at the bottom of why liberal talk radio has never caught on like conservative. The folks on the right will dispute it, but it's obvious that the left has more independent thinkers. So many people on the right just want to have their beliefs reinforced. It reminds me of that quote about Hobbits - they love to read books full of things they already know.
ReplyDeleteI use to share a Bias in favor of Fox news over the other networks. I felt they told stories and highlighted viewpoints not presented by the mainstream media outlets. I did however make a point to keep up with all viewpoints in order to make sense of a given issue. About 6 years ago when MSNBC went liberal and Fox news shifted even more to the right the two networks have lost any credibility in what they have to say in my mind. CNN is my last hope for an objective presentation and I am afraid market pressures will force them to choose ideological commentators. As time moves on you have to wonder where this prefered bias will take us politically and socially.
ReplyDeleteOne last point regarding the mindset of conservative bias against mainstream media because I use to be afflicted by this and to some point still am but less so today then in the past. After the Newtown shootings the mainstream media brought forth a huge amount of coverage regarding gun control. For the past 2 months if you believed what was put forth there was overwhelming support for gun control laws to be put into place. A week ago it became apparent that perhaps not everyone was in favor of assault weapons ban. Now today the Wash Post reports even legislation for gun registration is threatened. The conservative looks at the mainstream media and begins to feel the media presented a story on gun control with a slanted view. The conservative feels he was subjected to a liberal idealized viewpoint on the subject in favor of gun control legislation.