[oldembed width="425" height="239" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/BzZMdlgVZl8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" resize="1" fid="1"]
David Schuster talks about his days working at Fox.
Public Policy Polling’s 4th annual poll about television news shows that public trust for Fox News has hit a record low. But in case you had any doubt that the “fair and balanced” network is entwined with the GOP, trust for Fox is so strong among Republicans that their partisan support makes it the most trusted news network, too.
Just like its actual ratings, Fox News has hit a record low in the four years that we've been doing this poll. 41% of voters trust it to 46% who do not. To put those numbers into some perspective the first time we did this poll, in 2010, 49% of voters trusted it to 37% who did not. Fox has maintained most of its credibility with Republicans, dropping just from 74/15 to 70/15 over that period of time. But it's been losing what standing it had with Democrats (from 30/52 to 22/66) and independents (from 41/44 to 32/56).
We find once again this year that Democrats trust everything except Fox, and Republicans don't trust anything other than Fox. …When it comes to asking Americans which single outlet they trust the most and least out of the ones we polled on, Fox News once again wins both honors. 34% say it's the one they trust the most, compared to 13% for PBS, 12% for CNN, 11% for ABC, 8% for MSNBC, 6% for CBS, and 5% each for Comedy Central and NBC. Fox News is the choice of 67% of Republicans, while Democrats basically split their allegiances four ways between ABC and CNN, both at 17%, and MSNBC and PBS, both at 16%.
So while Roger Ailes and his minions still pretend to lack a partisan agenda, American news consumers know better. It’s also heartening to know that such stunts as pretending there’s journalistic value in questioning President Obama’s citizenship, denying climate change, and predicting a landslide win for Mitt Romney don’t sit so well with most of us.
By the way, the real winner was PBS. It was the only outlet trusted by a majority of respondents.
