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Fox Most Trusted News Channel in US, Poll Shows
Survey showing approval rating of more than 50% for rightwing network vindicates its drive for partisan audience
The onward march of Fox News, the relentlessly rightwing channel that has revolutionized American television news by making it overtly partisan, has been boosted by an opinion poll that suggests it is the most trusted news operation in the country.
Almost half of all Americans surveyed in the poll of 1,151 registered voters said they trusted Fox News. That is a notably larger vote of confidence than the 39% who said they trusted Fox's great rival CNN, and vastly more than the credibility ratings of the traditional news networks ABC News (31%), CBS News (32%) and NBC News (35%).
The poll findings are vindication of the commercial strategy of Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and is the brainchild of his controversial henchman Roger Ailes. Fox News threw out the old model of television news - pitched towards a mass audience across the political spectrum and aspiring to standards of fairness in reporting - and replaced it with an aggressive drive for a niche audience of rightwing voters.
The motto of the network is "Fair & Balanced", but in many respects it is anything but. "Fox News is not really a news network, it's a commentary network. Its news output is a small island in a vast sea of very conservative commentary," said Mike Hoyt, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review whose March issue features a cover story exploring the Fox News phenomenon.
The poll findings underline the partisan nature of both the network and its audience. When the respondents are broken down by party affiliation, an overwhelming 74% of Republican-leaning Americans trust the network, but only 30% of Democrats.
Dean Denham, president of Public Policy Polling, the North Carolina-based survey firm that carried out the poll, said the Fox strategy had been brilliant commercially but its implications were troubling. "That people see the network as trustworthy is worrying in terms of the future of reasoned debate in America. A lie screamed loudly will trump a truth spoken quietly," he said.
Denham said he had first-hand experience of Fox News's value judgments.
His firm had conducted a poll that produced some strikingly poor results for the Democrats in terms of their popularity ratings. At exactly the same time Fox News commissioned its own internal poll, which came up with more favorable results for the Democrats, yet the network decided to go with PPP's results rather than its own.
"That showed me that when they have the opportunity to go with something more negative about the Democrats, they will."
Qualms about the biased approach of the network has even reached the Murdoch family. Earlier this month the PR executive Matthew Freud, who is married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, told the New York Times he was "ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of journalistic standards".
But for the time being such anxieties are unlikely to change the direction and strategy of Fox News, which is enjoying growing viewer figures and a mounting political influence through the groundswell of rightwing popular discontent displayed by the tea party movement.
The latest rankings by Nielsen Media Research for all cable networks at primetime during the period dominated by the Haiti earthquake and the bombshell election of a little-known Republican to the Massachusetts Senate seat put Fox News top of the list with an average of 3.2 million viewers. That put it above lifestyle and entertainment channels and well above CNN in 22nd place.
As further evidence of its pre-eminence, Glenn Beck, the network's most strident and emotive of rightwing hosts, was this week voted second favorite TV personality in the annual Harris Poll, behind only Oprah Winfrey.
Comments
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63 Comments so far
Show AllWow - how easily people are fooled.
Fox is State of the art hypnosis.
beware the "N" word...
fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV fox TV
it's fox TV folks...
DON'T... use... the "N" word here! IT DOES NOT APPLY.
i hear tell it's great therapy for mental patients... who are divorced from reality... gives them an anchor...
Oh my God this is so funny. 1,151 people were polled...hahhahahahaha and they were polled where? Since when in the history of media and the Interent has there ever been an accurate poll? We can't even get an election counted correctly.
THEY do it FOR themselves to rile you up and make you believe it's true, and get you all up in arms about why are people so stupid and you believe this crap????? You are being duped by the right wing AGAIN!!!
I know about 200 people, I would venture that less than 10 of them would agree with this poll, and at least 40% of the 200 are registered Republicans.
Come on people, I hope no one is buying this b.s.
The Naderites and the Tea Party nuts want Obama to fail so they turn to Fox News to enjoy bashing Obama.
I voted for Nader and refuse to watch Fox News. I doubt Nader and his supporters are fans themselves.
Despite that, this has to be bullshit. Isn't that old bag Rupert losing his ass right now?
I keep telling all my Nader friends to quit watching Fox News, but they just can't seem to get enough of it. I don't know what this country is coming to.
Know your enemy...but then any news channel other than FSTV or LINK tv is going to be just that. Those two stations are the enemy of corporate America. I'm actually shocked that any intelligent person would consider any mainstream media truthful. I'll say it one more time boys and girls...FOLLOW THE MONEY.
My post was a joke, but you're right.
Fox knows how to brand itself, for example by having Fox Sports. By throwing palatable viewing (sports) out to public, the sports viewing public perceives something positive about Fox. This helps offset the propaganda machine on Fox News and opinion shows. Fox Sports is probably also a cash cow for Fox.
How many of you commenting here actually know people who watch Fox News? I know alot, and they really think it's Fair & Balanced, if not a little bit too left-wing.
For all you liberal landers (coastal/urban/literate) I recommend you read "Deer Hunting with Jesus", by Joe Bageant, who has real southern redneck roots and writes about his people. I've lived and worked in the places he describes and it is dead-on accurate. Also, I know educated people, engineers at least, who swallow the Fox crap wholly and, again, in fact think it may be a liitle too PC/leftwing.
bgcd: evidently you think that the poll cited in the article is accurate. Perhaps. In any event, Fox News is assiduously broadcasting the seeds of the mass basis of American fascism. (Compare Green's article on today's Common Dreams.) Not only can it happen here; it is happening here.
To become an engineer, you really don't need to become educated as only the bare-bones liberal arts requirements must be passed to graduate. Outside of their specific fields, most engineers are quite ignorant of most everything.
Ah, Hmmm, As a practicing engineer and holding a Masters in Electrical Engineering, I have to differ with that. I find that engineers have to face reality. The bridge must not fall, the processor must not allow errors to go undetected and so on.
There are very few liberal engineers because of this requirement. The whole liberal world view is one giant fantasy - from Global Warming (not happening when you look at the only real data source that ClimateGate has revealed to be clean - the satellites) to DDT (UN had to admit it was safe and allow its use a few years back) to nuclear energy is more expensive and so on.
The largest fantasy of all was socialism, communism , marxism, heck with it, just call it Collectivism. Its been completed destroyed by many, from Von Mises, to Ayn Rand, to Milton Friedman and yet its destruction makes no difference. The liberals constantly call for it.
So don't accuse engineers of being ignorant, we, of necessity, live in the real world!
I'm an engineer and think the other poster is right. Engineers don't get enough liberal arts background, in part because they are highly focused on the technical arcana of their speciality. Also, I found engineering education in colleges to be an excellent education in the boot-licking corporate lifestyle these people sign up for once they graduate.
I'm a little surprised to hear you say socialism is a fantasy. What part of the last two years are you not getting? A distinct lack of socialistic big government in our finance sector just ran away with trillions of our tax dollars. Perhaps you only agree with socialism when its applied to corporate CEOs.
Engineering is applied science. How anyone educated in applied science could deny the science of global warming is amazing to me. You probably don't believe in evolution either. If I had to guess, I'd guess you don't actually believe in other engineering disciplines, outside Electrical. You are a perfect example of the other posters complaint. Your complete educational focus on that one aspect of engineering has left you warped and banal about all other aspects of nature and human nature. You are perfect 'Faux News' bait.
Oh my! You are a walking, talking example of what karlof1 was describing! Are your remarks actually parody?
Yet, you have a masters degree! Do you have a PE too? Which states?
As a practicing civil engineer, I find you remarks to be generally correct among most of my colleagues. They are poorly educated outside their specialized fields, and as elsewhere, poor education correlates very strongly with conservatism.
I'm anxious to read Hoyt's piece in the Columbia Journalism Review. We only hear about "voters" or "republicans/democrats" when these polls praising Fox News are released - I'd like to see how age group or gender figures into these stats. I've long thought that Fox News has been benefiting from the branding of its Fox TV Network - IMO young people (not politically involved ones) associate FOX with The Simpsons or Family Guy (no disrespect by association intended to Matt or Seth)- how many sports-crazed men flip on FOX News because they get their sports from a FOX too? Americans get comfortable with certain brands, couch potatoes are lazy and it takes lots of brain power to remember all the cable news channel numbers right? Maybe? Maybe not...who cares. You & I cannot yell FIRE in a crowded theater or BOMB in an airport but bring up the fact that Fox News lies and everyone starts talking about free speech. I cannot recall what he was specifically talking about but Senator Franken recently told another Senator that.."You are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to you own facts".
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The motto of the network is "Fair & Balanced", but in many respects it is anything but. "Fox News is not really a news network, it's a commentary network. Its news output is a small island in a vast sea of very conservative commentary," said Mike Hoyt.
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Why we allow commentary to be sold as news is beyond me....but then again we also allow the existence of monopolies & still call it capitalism.
Yeah RIGHT!!!! Ha ahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahah!
The media only talks to itself now i guess..
"Earlier this month the PR executive Matthew Freud, who is married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, told the New York Times he was "ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of journalistic standards.""
Betcha he's got no problem pocketing his share of the money.
Fox is owned by Zionist foreigner Rupert Murdoch, and a large stake is held by a Saudi. At the same time the Republican party answers to big oil, neocons, wall street and AIPAC. Its a good fit. Should Fox be registered as a foreign agent?
Fox takes out any ctiticism of Israel, and cheerleads wars in Iraq and Iran. It promotes freedom FROM unions, minimum wage and health care while Wall Street and global companies desert the American worker. It beats down the global warming problem so we happily consume all the oil that can be pumped. It blames Obama for the deficits resulting from Bush tax cuts, multi-trillion dollar wars on borrowed money, and the recession.
Fox distracts the rabble from the truth by disparagement of ACORN, Jimmy Carter, Janet Reno, Nancy, Harry, Barney... and anyone who could ever have been called a progressive or socialist. Especially if they ever crossed paths with Obama. The mad as hell at something undefined tea parties. I hear it at work every day.
(I think what the tea partiers are mad as hell at is the fact that they were taken by Bush and the neocons and can't admit it, and that uppity Negro in the White House.)
Fox plays the Christian social conservative card (while the cameras cynically make love to leggy buxom babes like Julie Banderas), and the propaganda is complete.
Finally, its slick and fun to watch. BTW, whatever happened to Lauri Dhue?
1,151 registered voters:
"74% of Republicans trust the network"
852 trust
299 don't
The USS Essex has a ships complement of 1,182.
Imagine:
852 trust their captain
299 don't
31 have no opinion
...Not exactly a tight ship.
If I were the USS Fox, I'd be worrying.
You have to have access to cable or satellite TV to watch Fox "news." If the stats I've read about in the past are true, most U.S. households don't. The article isn't clear on whether only subscribing people were polled (you could be a person who does not watch Fox TV but still have an opinion about Fox...).
If only subscribers were polled, that's a bias.
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This is a good point. I personally do not subscribe to cable or satellite tv because I made a promise to myself that until these companies offer a la carte subscriptions in which a person can choose what channels they will receive and reject, I would not pay for the "privilege" of having Fox News pumped into my living room.
My guess is that at this point, most left-of-center people have trusted online sources of news, and that the vast majority of us consider all corporate MSM untrustworthy.
"Dewey Defeats Truman"
Oh I know people who watch Fox News and listen to Fox radio. They don't get it at all.
How many Nader supporters REALLY watch Fox News? Come on.
My dad puts it on sometimes to laugh at it and bitch about it.
Nader supporters don't watch Fox News. My post was a joke aimed at a ridiculous initial post. I hate smilies but I may have to start using them.
The 21st Century Planetary Menace! Das Kapital! Requires a GREAT propaganda channel! And a cloistered consensual clientele! N'est ce pas? Damn the torpedos!
"brilliant commercially but its implications were troubling"
DAS KAPITAL!!!
A lot of people like being told what to think.
old news.
does anyone remember George Putnam?
Oh, my G....!!!!!!!!
Who are these 30% of Democrats who trust Fox? When is America going to realize that the mainstream media is little more than a mouthpiece for the corporatocracy? Fox just happens to be the most hateful.
So, how do we subvert, make ridiculous, and dismember the "authority" of the CMSM?
IF this is true, it can't be anything but the saddest commentary of the u.s.a., I hope rupert murdock dies a horrible lingering death.
This is tragic. The sample is laughably small but what's scary is how you can see Fox setting the parameters of discussion. Again and again the other networks will limply follow along on the iron rails set down by Fox. They adopt the lingo and absorb the assumptions.
I always thought Big Brother would look more sinister and imposing, Stalinesque even - not like the clownish Glenn Beck. It is even more humiliating this way. Get rid of your TV - it really is bad for you.
I've been without one for 4 months now. It's been tough but I think I've gained more perspective. If there's ever a Progressive terrorist backlash in this nation, I've been thinking recently it should be to destroy all televisions, everywhere.
What a better country this would be, if only...
I trust FOX Opinion TV explicitly...to lie, distort, rant, slander, and mispell words.
miSSpell
(or was it satire?)
good laugh either way.
FauxNews and all the other stations from the Munistry of Truth stopped transmitting to my television set last June. Life has never been better since.
Of course,these are the same people who are as equally miserable and angry as the talking heads they are watching. Misery loves company.
~Some people live their whole lives without ever waking up~
The poll is misleading. A classic way to "lie with statistics."
Just because Fox *is* so partisan and appeals to fanatics, it attracts their *advocacy* vote for "objectivity" in this poll.
Yes, ironically, "advocacy" votes.
The other networks, objective & bland & nonpartisan, didn't attract votes of this cadre of partisan fanatic advocates.
The nonfanatic nonpartisan support was divided among the other networks.
It's just too bad this false "news" about Fox might spread, though.
Everyone should write letters to the media pointing out the fallacy. Please feel free to use these words if you like.
'Matthew Freud, who is married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, told the New York Times he was "ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of journalistic standards".'
Hilarious! A serial axe murderer may also be sickened by the spectacle of a more primitive style of dismemberment!! Perhaps USan media's GREATEST triumph over the people has been camouflaging such gargantuan hypocrisy from multitudes of people over multitudes of years! Hilarious!
gnken
Disgusting is the only thing I can say next to the fact that Americans have been so "Dumb Down" by Fox New.
I try to watch Fox from time to time in order to be fair and [well] balanced, and try to ignore their plethora of blonde bimbos, as I deplore sexism; however, it is difficult to sit through a whole program when I must spend so much of it heaving in the bathroom.
I almost majored in engineering in college. They pushed it as "the career of the future" when I was in high school.
"Almost half of all Americans surveyed in the poll of 1,151 registered voters said they trusted Fox News."
That seems realistic...however only registered voters were asked.
Ands since almost 50% of registered voters also vote for the GOP, and since Faux is their propoganda arm, and since Americans LOVE to be told things that re-enforce their belief system ,and do not like to hear opposing views...it makes perfect sense.
If Foxy News is the most trusted news channel in America, it goes to show how politically dumb Americans are. Foxy News: We distort so you can decide that we are the most trusted cable news channel in America.
Believe me when I say you are on the right track to finding the correct information about what possibly obfuscates/confounds you the most, as I have been without tv hookup for the last 10 years.
I have forsaken tv, as a medium, as a source of information and as board as I get trying to comment to so many sites, the diversity opens up so much more that the stupid msm will not provided.
Take any and all with a grain of salt but read books to really get and become informed about what just in the HELL IS GOING ON!!!!
The same phenomena is examined in this artical:-
Why do people often vote against their own interests?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm?
" ... But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help. ..."
Just what this country needs, a new generation of idiots. So you wanted proof that no child left behind really works. Here is your proof. Boy, Ted Kennedy really screwed this one up.
Candide writes, above (oldest first):
"This is tragic. The sample is laughably small but what's scary is how you can see Fox setting the parameters of discussion."
The article reports:
"Almost half of all Americans surveyed in the poll of 1,151 registered voters said they trusted Fox News."
The 1,151 figure is within the range of what U.S. pollsters have considered a "representative sample" for decades. Most polls you read about conform to this sample size.
Part of the problem with polling is economics. Trying to cull for bias can be expensive.
For example, most polls are telephone polls, which sets up all sorts of issues. For example, I have a telephone, but I am almost always on-line and when I am not I rarely answer the phone.
Also, most pollsters have clients to answer to.
I spent three years in the business back in the 80s, and I find it interesting that nobody has polled me since. And nobody has called me for jury duty. But perhaps I digress.
Today, polls are part of the political propaganda. In theory they have great value. In practice?
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