3w ago

Republicans and Democrats differ drastically in which news sources they trust and distrust

Source: Pew Research

71 comments

The trust in Fox News is SO disheartening. It's almost completely sensationalist propaganda.
I'm surprised NPR has low trust rates from both parties. I can feel a liberal bias, their long-form stories are excellent, but they do try to present both sides which probably makes some liberals unhappy.
- Fox News admitted under oath in a court of law that they intentionally mislead their audiences with bullshit in order to push an agenda.
  After that happened, Fox News should've been either forced to shut down or their audiences should've walked away in shame.
  Instead, Fox News audience: WE WANT MORE OF THAT!
  
  I think they should have just been told they cannot use the term news. They could use the term Knews if they like. Like Krab for News
  If the just went with Fox Entertainment, that's fine as well. But if the information you are putting out there you are saying your viewers know isn't necessarily factual, it shouldn't fall under news. The Onion Im sure would be fine with BREAKING KNEWS
  
  I mean the answer is really obvious. Fox and right-wing news outlets in general are designed to elicit strong emotional responses with the stories that they run and how they run them. It is, without exaggeration, literally - in the classical sense of the term “literally” (fuck I hate that I have to specify that now) - the daily hour(s) of hate. Strong emotions elicit the release of dopamine. This is why it “feels good” to many people.
- I took the results a bit differently.
  First, I ignored the dislike slices. Who's watching sources they distrust? Nobody, so that's personal bias, IMO.
  Now, look at the Trust slices. Other than FoxNews, no news source really breaks 25% for the Repubs. They just don't seem to follow any source. If they did, they'd trust someone. So half watch FoxNews, and only a quarter watch anything else.
  For the lefties, half the sources have 30-60% trust. That is a lot more sources getting regular eyes and ears on them. Something like NPR getting less high reviews is likely just less listeners as it's a bit "drier" news and a bit "both sidesey" due to it being public media. The dislike for it is only 3%, tied for the lowest dislike. Counterpoint is Newsmax for the left. Really low like and dislike because why would a liberal ever watch that?
- all the magats here are glued to fox 'news'. many even pay the $100+ a month for cable or satellite and literally never change the channel from it.
- but they do try to present both sides which probably makes some liberals unhappy.
  I’ll tell you why they lost me. In the run-up to the Iraq War II, the GeeDubz administration was obviously pushing bullshit. Like - everyone who wasn’t already subsumed into the Fox News talk radio hivemind knew - with very very little-to-no doubt, they were lying about WMDs. Outright lying - not “wrong” - outright lying.
  They had a secret meeting to plan this war before Sept 11, and now they were hell bent to do it. But, because this was pre-trump, they needed to at least snow everybody under enough to make it look “legitimate”.
  NPR ran every bullshit lie straight up as if it were true - and, listen, everybody knew; everybody from the CIA down to Joe from Joe’s Bar and Grill knew - it was absolute garbage BS. But there they were promoting the lies just like Fox News, only with a little twist - a little “critics say” coda at the end, a totally useless nod.
  GeeDubz wasn’t doing press conferences then. Like at all. For a year, I think. Anyway, he’s finally going to do one. Several major networks are going to be allowed one question each. NPR is one of them. The day arrives, we all listen in to see what flimsy crooked tacked-on part of their insane plan they’ll work to expose. The question comes.
  It was the most mealy, softball, worthless question imaginable. NPR had sent Juan Williams to ask it. I think he’s still lying for Fox News where he went several years later.
  That, and NPR outright refusing to call “enhanced interrogation” what it was; that’s when I told them to GTFO. Never went back.
  Listen, they’re as liberal as a chain store. Their whole purpose is to deflect progressive narratives. And that’s all they do.
- National Propaganda Radio is as bad as Fox News. They push whatever agenda the war machine demands.
- Not sure I understand your NPR comment. Distrust among Dem/Lean Dem is 3%, the lowest level tied with The Atlantic and Axios (for some reason). Affirmative trust among Dem/Lean Dem is 47%, which isn't the highest but clearly in a very trusted category.
  Sure, as an absolute rust number 47% may seem low, but the distrust number is the more important one, and in general there's less affirmative trust than expected across the board for generally reliable news sources.
- NPR is tied for the highest trust/distrust ratio on the dem side, tied with AP.

Joe Rogan Experience being called a news source 😠
- Do they even have news? I thought it was like the Howard Stern show or something
  
  It IS.

The most striking thing in this graphic is that Republicans don't trust anything except Fox and Joe Rogan. Shows the lack of critical thinking imho.
- I'm really surprised they omitted OAN, the news source for America's most critical thinking challenged.
- Even Rogan didn't hit a third. That's nute

I think one of the scariest parts here is how only one news source cracked 50% for Republicans. That indicates a rejection of the concept of news
- I think it's more that they reject information / knowledge / learning. That's why they're so prone to disinformation, grift, and conspiracy theories.
  
  They accuse all of the other sources of media of being leftist. They reject any narrative that puts their ideology in a bad light. Their politicians have been pushing them away from news sources that they deem "leftist". They've been entirely brainwashed by centralized messaging from a handful of sources yet accuse the left of being the brainwashed ones. It's wild.
- Exactly the takeaway. They do not value different sources corroborating a set of facts. They prefer a specific narrative. Which has been the feeling we've all had for years as it relates to Republicans. It's very interesting to see it in data.
- I’ve said for a while now that I’d love to see the demographics for Ground News users. Because I can almost guarantee that the vast majority are left-leaning. Because right-leaning people have zero interest in comparing news stories or getting different takes. They just want a single narrative, with their opinions for the week piped directly into their brain.
- I also reject the concept of any for-profit 24 hour news station. There isn't that much news and they need to hype up nonsense to keep attention and get advertising dollars.

So Republicans distrust media overall much more than Democrats.
If it wasn't for the Fox News and Joe Rogan trust, i would say Republicans seem more media literate than Democrats. Although in these case the Republicans also distrust them relatively more than the Democrats do for some of "their" media. In particular the NYT and CNN deserve much more distrust imo. It is clear that they are agenda driven, usually against the interests of the middle class.
- I think it's less about having an agenda or not, and more about the factuality of reporting. If I read "so-and-so is quoted as saying..." then can I trust that what is being represented is the same as what the speaker intended?
  Agenda-free reporting would be nice in theory, but I don't think it's very realistic. We can demand certain standards of factuality though, and then just do the legwork to identify and take biases into account.
  
  I mean, they are nowhere near Rogan or Fox News in terms of agenda, but i think Rogan is a great example. Most of his stuff is just podcasts. So instead of "quoting" the guests, he just lets them speak directly. But the choice of guests, the choice of question and so on, make a huge difference in the picture conveyed to the consumer.
  One could argue that the relatively subtle way of media like the NYT is more insidious as it is harder to spot, but it seems that the "blunt" approach of Fox News isn't less effective, so i couldn't judge which is better or worse.
  I agree with you that it isn't very realistic to find reporting free of any Agenda, even if the reporters do their best to be as neutral as possible.
- In particular the NYT and CNN deserve much more distrust imo. It is clear that they are agenda driven, usually against the interests of the middle class.
  I'm a paying subscriber of the New York Times.
  I find your criticism deeply unfair. Yes, the NYT sometimes gets thing wrong. No news organization is perfect. But, overall, it's a good newspaper. And they aren't anti-middle class. In fact, I would argue the opposite. It's one of the only big media organization in the US that regularly publishes pro-union opinion articles. When was the last time you saw USA today or CNN do that?
  Why Unions Are Good for America
  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/30/opinion/uaw-strike-unions.html
  Inside Starbucks’ Dirty War Against Organized Labor
  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/21/opinion/starbucks-union-strikes-labor-movement.html?searchResultPosition=193
  The Cost of a Decline in Unions
  https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/opinion/nicholas-kristof-the-cost-of-a-decline-in-unions.html
  Workers Should Not Have to Risk Their Lives in Heat Waves
  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/opinion/heat-wave-workers-climate.html?searchResultPosition=44
  Pay Caitlin Clark What She’s Worth
  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/opinion/caitlin-clark-wnba-salary.html?searchResultPosition=48
  Republicans Assumed a Nebraska Senate Seat Was Safe. Then This Candidate Came Along.
  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/opinion/nebraska-senate-dan-osborn.html?searchResultPosition=30
  The real pro-oligarchy paper is the Wall Street Journal.
  The WSJ never published a single opinion article saying good things about labor unions.
  WSJ editors are explicitly told that if they do that, they will be fired. This is a direct order from the owner, Rupert Murdoch.
  In fact, the WSJ has published countless opinion pieces praising right-to work laws, attacking labor unions, and calling for taxes on the rich to be massively slashed:
  https://www.wsj.com/opinion/workers-choice-is-the-way-forward-unions-employees-9847e341
  https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-right-to-work-rout-1533767899
  Joe Biden named Lina Khan, an anti-monopoly activist, to head the FTC.
  If you read the NYT, you will find several opinion articles praising Lina Khan for taking on huge corporations:
  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/26/opinion/lina-khan-ftc-venture-capital-silicon-valley.html
  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/opinion/lina-khan-antitrust-harris.html
  If you read Murdoch's WSJ, every opinion article attacks Lina Khan and defends huge corporations.
  Every. Single. Article.
  https://www.wsj.com/opinion/lina-khan-ftc-capri-tapestry-merger-antitrust-5a3627c1
  https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-ftc-goes-evidence-free-lina-khan-pbm-healthcare-14076225
  https://www.wsj.com/opinion/lina-khan-federal-trade-commission-amazon-case-e2cce1c5
  https://www.wsj.com/opinion/an-unfond-farewell-to-lina-khan-fabbf799
  
  I was okay with NYT until I saw the completely unfair and unbalanced way they treated Sanders vs Hillary, promoting every negative story about Sanders and nothing about Hillary. Taking Hillary's side on every issue and controversy. That was when I realized they just look liberal until there's any real change to the oligarchy proposed, and that's when the knives come out.
  
  The NYT has also published many pieces demonizing Palestinians and downplaying Israeli war crimes. It even helped Israeli intelligence assets spread allegations about sexual violence on October 7 that couldn't be verified by other Journalists, human rights groups or the UN, but helped strongly in distracting from well documented and evidenced sexual violence by Israelis against Palestinians they have taken hostage.
  The NYTs defends the piece to this day, despite acknowledging:
  "In February 2024, Schwartz was found to have liked incendiary posts on social media, including one calling to "turn the strip into a slaughterhouse", "violate any norm, on the way to victory", and that read "Those in front of us are human animals who do not hesitate to violate minimal rules."[2][23][24] The Times launched an investigation.[23] The Times was reviewing Schwartz's social media posts, and made a preliminary statement that such activity breaches company policy.[23][5] Schwartz subsequently locked and deleted her social media posts."
  The NYT also simped for the Iraq invasion and bullied out their former Middle East bureau chief Chris Hedges, because he dared to criticize that illegal war of aggression.
  As for the role of the NYT in maintaining support for the Vietnam war and downplaying US involvement with far right extremist and fascist terror organizations and dictators in Central and South America, i recommend you to read "Manufacturing consent", which provides detailed evidence of how the NYT is part of the corporate media that ensures consent for US crimes against humanity and international law all around the world.

Reuters ignored again
- Yeah, I wanted to see how it stacked up compared to others. Guess not.

Trust is a strong word for almost all of these. A lot of them have betrayed my trust before so I don't trust them anymore. Like who would trust the New York Times? Honestly? They do some good reporting. But I think you'd have to be naive to just trust whatever they say these days, or ever really.
- Yeah they lost me when in 2004 they buried a story about all the WMD experts leaving Iraq on the back pages of section A while vocally supporting the war on the front page.
- Exactly. I may use some of these as sources if several all agree, but trust? Nah.

How the fuck does Fox news have 19% trust rate among the Dems?

The New York Post being a single point of agreement is great.
- Dems hate it cause they know it's a shitty right wing tabloid. Reps hate it because they don't read / don't know what it is, but it's from New York so it must be liberal.

Democrats: There definitely are some news sources you could at least compare to each other if not trust.
Republicans: Fox news and Joe Rogan all the way folks. Nothing else to see here.
Edit: There is an App called Ground News. It tries to outline which topics get reported by which outlets and where the left and right have their blind spots.
- Fox has a 2.67 factor of trust/distrust among Republicans. Rogan has a 3.44 factor for Republicans.
  Meanwhile CNN has 4.14 trust/distrust among Democrats and the NYT has a factor of 7 among Democrats. MSNB still comes above a factor of 4 and WAPO is about the same factor like Rogan.
  So it is not as much "all the way here" for Republicans. They are relatively more distrusting of all media, including "their" media.
  
  The lower trust in their own media might have something to do with how blatantly dishonest those sources are. But it also likely means that their viewers have lowered any standards they might have ever had. They aren't going to be shocked if they see the lies exposed, they can just shrug and say that everyone lies but the other side lies more.
  Obvious falsehoods are dismissed as hyperbole, close enough to the truth that it doesn't matter if it's not entirely accurate. Omissions are just distractions cooked up by the other side to keep us from talking about the real issues. There's no expectation that reporting should be factual and follow journalistic standards, the only measure of the quality of the news source is how much they agree with it. They've been inoculated against reality.

CBS is compromised after paying a 16M bribe to the first dork

If I trust none of them what does that make me?

Conservatives famously have poor media literacy. They are worse than children.

Interesting that The New York Post is more or less equally distrusted by the two. Kinda surprising, given that it's trash. I'd think repubs would be more in favor.
- This was my main takeaway too. I would have figured it would be right up there with Fox. If not democrats and not republicans, who even is their audience?
  
  NYPost is tabloid clickbait. Opportunists. Perhaps the Republican base is aware?
  I'm probably wrong. These people are so unpredictable and easily influenced by cult leadership.

Could we do some research into the amount of lies on each source?

I will hear out Associated and BBC but if it's in the US? Nah, probably owned by some billionaire parasite shitbag.

Like, I get trusting Fox News makes no sense given their track record, and a bunch of those are just blatantly untrustworthy...
But if you trust The Joe Rogan Experience as a News sources, you're a moron of the highest degree. It doesn't even set itself up as that. Joe Rogan himself regularly refers to himself as an idiot and you shouldn't follow what he says, he's just giving an opinion. The opinion of someone with no expertise. Whose claim to fame is as a comedian and such high-brow commentary as UFC fights and making white Americans eat bugs and bumble about in the dark.

I answered distrust on every single one of these.

I’m Surprised WaPo didn’t score better with Rebuplicans. I only see it’s opinion pieces but it’s very right leaning imo

Wow! Looks like one could say that Dems generally trust "mainstream" media and Reps generally don't.
- Doesn't Fox News being "The Number One Cable News Network" make it mainstream? I know my mother shutdown when I asked her.

I only trust the AP on that list. Aren’t most of those just propaganda?
- There are differences in propaganda. A lot of especially Western propaganda(but not exclusivly) works by selecting the stories and details, but what is being reported is generally true.

I mean duh.

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