No one, if a new poll by the Pew Research Center is any indication. Howard Kurtz reports on the poll in this morning’s Washington Post, highlighting this surprising finding: While 45 percent of Democrats polled find CNN credible, neither Democrats nor Republicans found Fox News Channel credible.
The actual numbers aren’t very encouraging for either outlet: Democrats favor CNN (45 percent) over Fox (24 percent) as a credible source of news, while Republicans trust neither, with only 29 percent trusting Fox and 26 percent trusting CNN.
Given those abysmal rankings, the responses from CNN and Fox both bordered on surreal. “We’re obviously pleased,” said CNN spokesman Matthew Furman. “Once again we’ve been voted the most trusted news organization in America.” (Note to Furman: If the Pew survey is any indication, that’s not unlike being named the world’s tallest midget.)
Meanwhile, Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti was practically burbling over the news: “The study confirms that while our audience continues to increase and our credibility expands, our competitors are hemorrhaging viewers and losing America’s trust.” Then, in a mindbender of a sentence, she explained it all away this way: “It’s fair to ask why so many Democrats are watching CNN if everyone has to ask why so many conservatives are watching us.”
The study offered precious little comfort for other press outlets trying to build trust across the political spectrum. Two examples that must have editors scratching their heads and reaching for the ulcer medication: The proportion of Republicans who find CBS News credible dropped from 23 percent six years ago to 15 percent today. For the Wall Street Journal, known within the profession for a ferociously conservative editorial page and for straightforward news columns that show neither fear nor favor, trust among Republicans fell from 48 percent to 23 percent. (More Democrats, 29 percent, now find the Journal credible than do Republicans.)
But those pesky Republicans were hard on just about everyone. Jim Lehrer’s “NewsHour” on PBS is often praised for its fairness, but its credibility with those who identify themselves as Republican dropped from 31 percent to just 12 percent over the past six years. USA Today‘s credibility score also plunged among Republicans, from 20 percent to 14 percent.
Even C-SPAN, which is basically a video transcript, is now found “credible” by only 23 percent of Republicans, down from 35 percent in 1998.
–Steve Lovelady
Steve Lovelady was editor of CJR Daily.