Wednesday, February 06, 2013

The number of people who trust Fox News is diminishing rapidly. But for those that do, Fox News is the ONLY thing that they trust. Update!

Courtesy of Public Policy Polling:  

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%. 

Even more Americans identify Fox News as the outlet they trust the least- 39% give its that designation to 14% for MSNBC, 13% for CNN, 12% for Comedy Central, 5% for ABC and CBS, 3% for NBC, and 1% for PBS. 60% of Democrats give it their lowest marks while Republicans split between MSNBC (24%), CNN (19%), and Comedy Central (14%) on that front.

I actually find these numbers fascinating in that Fox has managed to create a situation where their viewer base ONLY trusts the information they get from them. However the fatal flaw in that business strategy is that the market that they cornered are most often the elderly, who are also technologically ignorant. That means that quite literally their audience is dying off and there is no information starved younger Americans to replace them.

I think this is my favorite sentence from this article: We find once again this year that Democrats trust everything except Fox, and Republicans don't trust anything other than Fox. 

Just roll that around in your head for a minute. Then imagine what would happen to these people if suddenly Fox News ceased to exist. I imagine elderly men and women stumbling around zombie-like searching desperately for affirmation of their prejudices and political point of view.

I also find it interesting that at the same time Karl Rove and the Tea Party are battling over control of the Republican party that Fox News is also doing some cosmetic work by ditching Sarah Palin and Dick Morris.

Of course for those of us who get out information from a variety of sources (None of which are Fox News), we realize that no matter what they tighten, lift, or change, both the Republican party and Fox News will never be anything more than the bastion for a rapidly disintegrating political outlook and a propaganda machine aimed at a demographic that is dying out while bathed in the blinking lights of their sixty inch plasma TVs.

Update:  If you want to hear the difference between Fox News and MSNBC you listen to this very revealing interview with David Shuster who at one time worked for both. Listen particularly closely to what he said about the coverage of the 2000 election.

31 comments:

  1. Olivia3:47 PM

    I still am trying to figure out if these people who only trust Fox are so stupid they don't know how to find the truth or if they are so brainwashed that they can't allow the truth to disrupt their fearful fantasies.

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    1. Anonymous4:30 PM

      So brainwashed is the correct answer, but that said the brainwashing is very much helped by a heapin' helpin' of stupid. My mother is a very stupid woman who still believes that Obama is a Kenyan socialist. When you tell her anything factual to counter it she simply refuses to believe anything other than what she wants to believe. Some of her beliefs: wind energy is bad because they have to run wires out there, solar energy is bad because, just because, single payer health care is socialism unless she's receiving it. Really, it just goes on and on.

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    2. Confirmation Bias. Plain and simple.

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    3. Anonymous6:45 PM

      Got this off twitter just now:
      PeterHambyCNN
      Anonymous Republican operative tells Politico it's time to weed out the "haters" in the GOP. Wonder who that is. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/behind-the-curtain-gop-fox-political-purge-87293.html

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    4. Anonymous6:51 PM

      People who watch Fox are brain washed. They cannot listen to a reasoned argument or accept any real facts. They believe that President Obama is a Kenyan communist socialist Muslim, in spite of the fact that Sarah Palin regularly attacked Obama for attending the Rev. Wright's church for 20 years. How could he go to church for 20 years and be a Muslim? If it doesn't make sense, then you saw it on Fox.

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    5. Anonymous7:23 PM

      6:45 PM
      Hasn't Scarah been weeded? No one wants to say what a loser she is or what a mistake they made. They just pretend nothing happened and they quietly dump her.

      GOP is the sick lying cover up party now.

      Delete
    6. Anonymous7:30 PM

      Thanks Anon at 6:45.

      Great article on Politico: "The GOP, Fox political purge"
      Lots of good adjectives used to describe Palin.

      Republicans and Fox News are moving to purge the controversial political creatures they created.

      Fox ousted contributors Sarah Palin and Dick Morris, two of the most obnoxiously partisan figures on the network’s air.

      One high-profile Republican strategist, who refused to be named in order to avoid inflaming the very segments of the party he wants to silence, said there is a deliberate effort by party leaders to “marginalize the cranks, haters and bigots — there’s a lot of underbrush that has to be cleaned out.”

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  2. Anonymous4:11 PM

    There's an elderly white man in my neighborhood that has a very big, prominent sign in his front yard, "FOX NEWS FOR AMERICA!" This man is angry, always confrontational and also had a sign in his front yard that read "Barack Obama: Your last day is coming!"
    These people are frightening.

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    1. Anonymous5:26 PM

      I live in Yuma AZ and stopped going to to a particular recycling center because of their very offensive anti-Obama cartoons which were displayed at the cashier. It is Hispanic owned and operated.

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    2. Anonymous5:57 PM

      I also have a 'past' friend (male - fat, white guy - literally!) that has always been connected to FOX. He is one angry person and told me the country is going to hell under Obama. The guy is also racist and refers to to ALL black people with the 'n' word. He's really pissed off that President Obama was reelected...and, he knows I voted for him two times! He was born and raised in Wisconsin - got the anti black attitude when in the Coast Guard is what he told me. The guys a total mess, not well educated and age 74. Amazing!

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    3. Anonymous6:52 PM

      I am Hispanic, unfortunately a lot of Hispanic people are rabidly racist, I had to cut ties with my older ignorant aunt because she brings up President Obama every chance she gets and blames him for everything wrong in her loser life, I almost slapped her when she called him the n word during one of her foaming at the mouth rants..ggrrhh!!
      She sits slack jawed and glassy eyed through all Faux Noose's crap and salivates at the thought of Sarah Palin 2016..mmhh now that I think about it, I wonder if she's a Sea'o'Pee Cult member..

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    4. Anonymous6:45 AM

      Anonymous4:11 PM
      I would call the Secret service on his ass!
      "your last day" bs is a threat, especially since he was just re-Elected!
      I'm so sick of these people! They are VILE!

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  3. Anonymous4:17 PM

    Wow! Sarah looked like that 4 years ago.

    Now she looks like crap.

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    1. Anonymous5:28 PM

      Please somebody put up pics side by side of Sarah's entry and exit from Faux News.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous3:38 AM

      Here's granny paylin looking like either a meth addict or a sick anorexic refugee from a health clinic

      http://tiny.cc/joy4rw

      Delete
    3. Anonymous10:58 AM

      Ick. Sarah should dress more appropriately for her age. Her wrinkly upper arms are clearly visible.

      Delete
  4. Anonymous4:25 PM

    Fox news is an abuser - the same as an abusive husband or an abusive cult leader or an abusive parent. It's all the same. They intimidate their victims, keep them in line with fear and convince them that they can't trust anyone else.

    One can't really blame the victims of Fox news any more than one can blame battered wives or children. As Grypen has pointed out, most of them are elderly and uneducated. Like any predator, Fox news goes after the weakest, easiest prey.

    Fox knows exactly what they are doing, and they are despicable.

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    1. Anonymous5:55 PM

      Agree, they are abusers. Not good to lie, and build your "family" on a foundation of lies. Victims of Fox could take some responsibility for their lazy ass mental states.

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  5. @Olivia: it is definitely the latter. The sky is ffalling and Obama's the devil. Never mind that the economy is improving (painfully slowly), and that the spending cuts the teapublicans insisted on actually hurt the economic recovery, Obama's the devil [not].

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  6. Anonymous4:52 PM

    Imagine, Dick Morris and Sarah Palin were making Fox look stupid.

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    1. Anonymous5:58 PM

      Dick was on Piers Morgan, he has some balls. Sarah not at all. She is total coward. In hiding for how long now? I don't count the ghost writers or anything other than her in person.

      She was last seen and filmed wobbling with Todd holding her up? When was that? Long time it seems.


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    2. Anonymous7:19 PM

      Yep, she is still catatonic. They let her out too soon, had to put her back in the dungeon. She really blew it with that last performance selling cars.

      Delete
  7. Anonymous5:15 PM

    Olivia,
    All of the above!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous6:19 PM

    HEY EVERYBODY!

    Facebook Sarah Palin shared a link.8 hours ago · 

    "Happy birthday, President Reagan! In honor of the Gipper's 102 birthday, let's watch his 1st Inaugural Address again..."

    LOL

    So Facebook Sarah left FOX so she can broaden her message by telling the world that he Gipper would of been 102 years old?

    WTF?

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    1. Anonymous6:40 PM

      Alaska's ex-governor addressing a California State University-Stanislaus fundraiser over the weekend:

      "...this is Reagan country and (applause), YEAH! And perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and inter-linked to the Golden State.''

      Well, as Reagan liked to say, California is the Golden State, and he did become inter-linked with it. And yes, as Reagan also liked to say, he did go to a Eureka College, but it wasn't in California.No, Eureka College is half a continent away in the flatlands of Illinois. Reagan attended school there from 1928 to 1932. He was the school's top collegiate swimmer, a three-year letterman in football, and appeared in 14 plays. He left after graduation in 1932 to take a job as a sports announcer in Davenport, Iowa, which is closer to California but still a long way from it.

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    2. Anonymous6:47 PM

      To be fair I had a 130th birthday post for FDR last year January 30 and a post commemorating the 50th anniversary of Eleanor Roosevelt the day after the election last November.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous7:17 PM

      Just when I think her ghostwriter can't get anymore pathetic...

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    4. Anonymous7:38 PM

      Sarah Palin has a serpent's heart6:47 PM

      Did you also tell people that you turned down FOXs offer so you can broaden your message on your Facebook account?

      So the great Sarah Palin quit FOX so she can give birthday shout outs to dead people via her facebook news agency?

      Delete
  9. Anonymous6:29 PM

    If you wonder who they're pandering to, those of you on Facebook check out "Uncle Sam's Misguided Children." Yep, USMC for short.

    Their base. Scary.

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  10. Anita Winecooler7:18 PM

    The average Fox news consumer watches it, watch it not for the news, but because their stupidity keeps getting validated by the stupidity of the news celebritards. They're the same type of people we see on the "people of wallmart" site.

    Remember the sheep being interviewed in Baldy's book tour? That's it!

    Stockholm Syndrome.


    The conspiracy is over the photo on Hillary's Website. It was altered to make her look younger, sexier, more vibrant..... Yet Ester remains forever RNC beautified, and is lauded for her "brains", HA!!

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  11. Anonymous4:02 AM

    How did I miss this? Larry the Cable Guy Season 2, Ep. 1 "Alaska Road Trip"
    http://www.amazon.com/Alaska-Road-Trip/dp/B006WL4YXK

    Larry visits the Heaths and the Palins.

    ReplyDelete

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