Public Trust In Fox News Down 16 Points In Past Year

At least according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling:

-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.

Here’s the chart:


Perhaps the most striking fact, though, is the partisan divide:

Democrats trust everything but Fox. Republicans don’t trust anything but Fox. And independents don’t trust much of anything. For Democrats 73% trust PBS, 64% NBC, 61% CBS, 60% CNN, 56% ABC, and 22% Fox. For Republicans 67% trust Fox, 29% PBS, 22% CNN, 21% NBC, 17% ABC, and 15% CBS. For independents 44% trust PBS, 36% Fox, 34% CNN, 33% NBC, 27% CBS, and 26%

Personally I am closer to the Independent’s “don’t trust any of them” attitude than anything else, but there’s something slightly troublesome about the fact that partisans only seem to be listening to news sources that tell them what they want to hear.

FILED UNDER: US Politics, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. anjin-san says:

    You can’t fool all the people all of the time…

  2. Axel Edgren says:

    Ah, I had forgotten how faith in the US public felt like.

    See, this is what happens when you call a spade a spade and doesn’t hunker down when the Very Serious “Moderates” whine at you for laughing at Fox News and the corporatists – some people listen and start having the opinions they are supposed to have.

  3. john personna says:

    People are funny. A 16 point swing shows how funny.

  4. Nick says:

    “there’s something slightly troublesome about the fact that partisans only seem to be listening to news sources that tell them what they want to hear.”

    I wouldn’t say it’s troubling… not that its reassuring either. The fact is, people generally have an innate confirmation bias that leads them to accept what already fits into their world view and reject that which makes them look wrong. The fact that there are networks that cater specifically to particular world views and make money off of this confirmation bias shouldn’t surprise anyone.

  5. Michael says:

    A dimo polling firm puts out a obiovios nonsense and you believe it? NPR is more trusted? Yeah right? The blog is going from silly to sillier.

  6. Herb says:

    “the fact that partisans only seem to be listening to news sources that tell them what they want to hear.”

    Not sure that’s a fact at all. It seems that Fox is the outlier here. The “fact” is that Democrats generally trust the media, and Republicans generally don’t.

    Of course, the “telling them what they want to hear” theory explains why Republicans like Fox News. But it doesn’t explain why Democrats have generally favorable views of everyone else.

    Unless everyone else is telling Democrats what they want to hear.

  7. Andy says:

    Wow, people like watching media that confirms their own biases. Who knew?

  8. Franklin says:

    See, this is what happens when you call a spade a spade and doesn’t hunker down when the Very Serious “Moderates” whine at you for laughing at Fox News and the corporatists – some people listen and start having the opinions they are supposed to have.

    Can someone parse this sentence for me?

    A dimo polling firm puts out a obiovios nonsense and you believe it?

    Is this even English?

  9. ALP says:

    There is an old adage;
    “Don’t believe anything you hear, and only half of what you read or see”.
    I think more people should do the research, and base their opinions on as much factual
    information as they can determine themselves.
    But then, too many people are “Sheep” and just want to follow today. They don’t want to think for themselves!

  10. mantis says:

    Is this even English?

    Of course. Isn’t it obiovios?

  11. anjin-san says:

    > Is this even English?

    It’s the Queen’s English.

    Queen Sarah…

  12. Patrick T. McGuire says:

    Fox News’ audience totals are more than all the other channels combined but according to this poll they are trusted less than PBS!!!

    Yeah, right!

  13. mantis says:

    Fox News’ audience totals are more than all the other channels combined

    Not even close. Fox News has larger audiences than the other cable news stations, but the broadcast networks all blow it out of the water.

    Also, Fox News’s audience may be large compared to other cable news stations, but it’s still a tiny fraction of the American public. Obviously a lot of the people who don’t watch Fox also don’t trust Fox. Go figure.

  14. G.A.Phillips says:

    ***Obviously a lot of the people who don’t watch Fox also don’t trust Fox. Go figure.***:)

  15. G.A.Phillips says:

    “Everyone makes up words – Shakespeare, George W. Bush, Levi Johnston,” she said. “The only person I know who doesn’t do it is my husband Todd, who doesn’t speak”

    Queen Sarah…

  16. Richard says:

    The mass media has gotten so biased and crass that I’ve taken all of my news sources online. To ensure balance, I have feeds from blogs across the political spectrum, world, and language.

    I recommend a nice collection of the following:
    Outside the Beltway
    Marginal Revolution (centrist/libertarian much like OTB)
    FP Passport
    Project Syndicate
    Greg Mankiw’s Blog (centre-right)
    Brad Delong’s Blog (representing the left, as opposed to Krugman)
    Al-Jazeera
    For report on Asia, I prefer Singapore TV web streams
    On Africa and continental Europe, I stream tf1 from France
    The BBC online is also a generally nonbiased source of information.

  17. Jack says:

    A note – while there is some overlap, PBS and NPR are not the same.

    I haven’t parsed out the PBS question in the poll yet, but it’s interesting that the news source that the GOP is talking about de-funding is the one that is the most trusted.