American News Viewers: In Fox We Trust, Want Tina Fey To Succeed Jon Stewart

You can add “trusted” to Fox News’ motto of “fair and balanced,” according to findings of a nationally projectable poll of American’s perceptions of news organization trust, released this morning by Quinnipiac University.

Actually, only 29% of respondents cited Fox News as their most trusted TV news network, but that was still margins ahead of CNN (22%), NBC and CBS (10% each), ABC News (8%) and MSNBC (7%).

However, when the university’s researchers asked how much Americans trust their TV news outlets, only 20% said a “great deal” for Fox News, making the big winner local TV news outlets, according to Tim Malloy, assistant director of the school’s poll.

“Fox News may be the most trusted in the network and cable news race, but they all take a back seat to your local news,” he stated, adding that overall sentiment was weighted by party affiliation. Not surprisingly, 58% of Republican voters said they trust Fox News, compared with only 13% for CNN, the next most trusted news outlet among Republicans.

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CNN is the leading most trusted network among Democratic voters (32%), while Fox News ranked last with 3% of that party’s voters.

Defamed NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams should be allowed to come back by a majority of respondents (42% vs. 35% who said he should not be allowed).

On the truthiness news front, Tina Fey was the leading candidate among 19% of respondents to replace Jon Stewart when he retires as anchor of “The Daily Show,” followed by Dennis Miller (16%), John Oliver (7%) and Brian Williams, Craig Ferguson and Chelsea Handler (5% each).
6 comments about "American News Viewers: In Fox We Trust, Want Tina Fey To Succeed Jon Stewart".
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  1. Jon Currie from Currie Communications, Inc., March 9, 2015 at 3:07 p.m.

    Perhaps the reason for Fox's dominance is that it is perceived (and hyped as) the "alternative to lamestream media," the right's favorite canard. On the other hand, liberals as well as middle of the roaders divide their "trusted" category among the rest. And the percentages of those who trust Fox seem "strangely" similar to those who consider themselves to be Republican or conservative in most polls. This stuff is only rocket science apparently to Quinnipac.

  2. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, March 9, 2015 at 3:23 p.m.

    Jon, when you have the time you might check out the Pew studies. About two years ago they defined adults by their political views, then asked about their preference for various news sources. While the Right was sharply focused on Fox, as you say, and the Left was equally tilted to MSNBC, the middle of the spectrum divided more evenly among the various news sources, including a pretty good showing for Fox news. Interesting stuff.

  3. Jon Currie from Currie Communications, Inc., March 9, 2015 at 4:29 p.m.

    Ed, Good showing for Fox by "Lefties," probably means they are looking to see what the opposition is saying. But, thanks for the tip anyway. I shall. BTW, I conducted a study years back that found that people of different political spectra favor different channels for more than news. It's pretty interesting. I think the RNC stole it from me to help elect some of their people. I pitched it to both sides of the aisle, FYI.

  4. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, March 9, 2015 at 4:51 p.m.

    Jon, I didn't say that "lefties' were big on Fox News----quite the contrary. I merely pointed out that Fox gets a fairly good amount of viewership from the center of the political spectrum, not only the conservatives. You are right about other program genres. For example, I once advised a consultant working for a legal firm involved in a major case where the political persuasion of prospective jurors was probably a major factor. But you couldn't just ask them if they were conservatives or liberals. People lie about such things.You could ask about their media preferences and, in this regard, certain TV shows were clearly favored by the Left while others were a give away for finding Right minded jurors. For example John Wayne movies, TV westerns like "Gunsmoke" or nostalgic dramas such as "The Waltons" and more contemporary stuff like "Cops" are mostly conservative oriented; in contrast, "Saturday Night Live", "Sienfeld", Jon Stewart, etc. are mostly for the Left. Anyway, they began using this device and watching with interest, the judge soon joined in, though I wonder if he realized what the game was about. I understand that this sort of typing, including magazines, books and other media as well as movies and TV shows, is still used in some juror screenings.

  5. Stan Valinski from Multi-Media Solutions Group, March 10, 2015 at 12:08 a.m.

    Not too hard to figure out why local news is more "trusted". Local engages the viewer as a partner in life's day to day "grind. From waking up and getting to work (traffic, weather), work itself (local business, politics) and enjoying the fruits of their labors (restaurant, art & entertainment events and reviews). National is more of a Cronkiteish "That's the way it was today" chronicle of events on a world & national scale. The National News format is an endangered species if you look at the young demos but local is just starting to realize the huge potential of viewer and advertiser engagement.

  6. Cody H from Some big ad agency, March 12, 2015 at 6:56 p.m.

    Solid use of Truthiness Joe

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