• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 4, 2024

Fox is the most trusted news source in the country and ABC News is a distant second, according to a study by Publishers Clearing House (PCH) Insights, which surveyed 5,362 Americans about the state of their political engagement and how informed they were about the current campaigns.

What this signals for the election is unclear, but TV is the first choice for news followers while print lags far behind.  

The consumers polled cite these media outlets as the ones they trust the most: 

• Fox News — 22% 
• ABC News — 14% 
• CBS News — 9% 
• NBC News — 7% 
• MSNBC — 4% 
• Newsmax — 4% 
• PBS — 3%
• USA Today — 3%
• Yahoo News — 3%
• The Wall Street Journal — 2% 
• NPR — 2%
• The New York Times —2% 
• AP — 2%
• OAN — 2% 
• Reuters — 1% 
• Forbes — 1%
• Buzzfeed — 1%
• Daily Wire — 1% 
• Washington Post — 1%
• Apple News—1% 
• Breitbart — 1% 
• Newsweek — 1%
• Time — 1%
• Univision — 1% 
• Bloomberg — 1% 
• Politico — 1%
• Telemundo — 1% 
• LA Times — 0% 
• HuffPo— 0% 
• Business Insider — 0%
• Daily Beast — 0% 

It is not clear whether each of these percentages reflect consumers who actually engage with these news sources.

However, Fox ranks highest with 25% of people ages 55+ and up, with  17% in the 45-54 category, 21% ages 35-44, and 19% of Gen Z ages 25-34.

In general, slightly more people feel that the media is untrustworthy than those who feel the opposite way: 

• Very untrustworthy — 17% 
• Untrustworthy — 21% 
• Neither — 39%
• Trustworthy — 19% 
• Very trustworthy — 5% 

Older generations are more suspicious — 40% each in the 55+ and 45-54 cohorts think the media are very untrustworthy. And 29% of the 55+ age group is more likely to say they are very trustworthy, compared to 20% or less in every other generation.

Of the consumers polled, 53% check the news every day. Another 18% check the news many times a week. Only 6% said they never bother themselves with it.  

But the frequency depends on age: 69% of those aged 55+ hear or see the latest news every day, as do 52% in the 45-54 age group. In contrast, only 38% of Gen Z are daily news consumers and 41% are millennials.  

Here are the channels through which they get news about current events: 

• Television — 28%
• Social media — 18% 
• News website/app — 18% 
• Radio — 12% 
• Friends or family — 10% 
• Print — 6% 
• Podcast — 4%
• Other — 4% 

Drilling down, news providers are listed as follows, with these percentages having seen or read them in the prior two weeks: 

• ABC News — 16% 
• Fox News — 15% 
• CBS News — 15% 
• NBC News — 12%
• CNN — 12% 
• MSNBC — 7%
• None — 6% 
• PBS — 4% 
• Newsmax — 3%
• Bloomberg — 3% 
• NPR — 2%
• Reuters — 2% 
• OAN — 1%
• Telemundo — 1%
• Univision — 1% 

Consumers ages 25-34 place Fox and ABC News in a tie for first place in terms of consumption.

Boomers, on the other hand, rank Fox third with 15%, ABC News first with 17% and CBS News second with 16%. 

People who read the news as opposed to seeing it have engaged with these titles in the past two weeks. Only one is in the double digits:

• USA Today — 10%
• Yahoo News — 8% 
• The New York Times — 8%
• Newsweek — 7%
• Washington Post — 6% 
• Associated Press — 5%
• Wall Street Journal—5%
• Forbes — 5%
• Buzzfeed — 4%
• Huffington Post — 4%
• Apple News — 4% 
• Time — 3%
• Daily Wire — 3%
• Business Insider — 3% 
• Politico — 3% 
• Daily Beast — 2%
• LA Times — 2% 
• Breitbart — 2% 
• None — 16%