The Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, published a report on immigration studies, which comes via Hot Air. Here is the chart from page 36: “Trust in Television News Sources” (click to zoom in):
A few things are immediately noticeable about the chart:
1. Fox News is rated as the most trusted name in news among all Americans.
2. Fox News is rated as the most trusted name in news by more Republicans and Independents, as well as by more Republicans and Moderates, than any other news source.
3. MSNBC is rated as the most trusted name in news by only 10% of Democrats; which puts it slightly ahead of the satirical Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Apparently among partisan Democrat voters, it’s even hard for them to choose what news source they trust more: the blatantly partisan MSNBC or a comedy news show. Hate to rain on MSNBC fans’ parade, but people aren’t buying it:
A few things give Fox News more credibility than other networks among a sizeable segment of the population. The first thing is that there is demand for real news under a Democratic president and a split Congress – and that doesn’t include fluff pieces about the Obamas’ dog or Barack’s latest late show appearance or his recent golfing trip with Tiger.
Because if there were no Fox News, that would be about all the broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC and the Daily Show would run about the current administration. Non-stop. 24/7. Heck, they could dispense with the formality and just form one monolithic DNN – Democratic News Network – and call it a day.
Another thing is that despite it being unabashedly infotainment in presentation, Fox News at least tries to hold government accountable. Liberal networks used to boast about being a “fourth branch of government”; they abandoned that role a long time ago.
Lastly, there’s the matter of what Americans care about. Most working Americans care about things like jobs; indeed, that is borne out by the Brookings study itself. Here is a ranking of six broad issues by demographic:
Notice what Democrats are running on in 2014 – immigration reform and climate change. Now look at how much even liberals and Democrats care about these issues. Short and sweet: Not a lot.
Also notice how nothing the Democrats accuse Republicans of caring about even registers in such surveys: there’s no “racism” issues or “war against women” issues. Conservatives and Republicans never mention such things as being of any concern to them whatsoever. Strange, right?
Many Americans don’t care about the Democrats’ contrived “wars” against everything imaginable except military enemies or the latest “distraction politics” PR stunt. They mainly care about things that affect them personally.
They care about bread-and-butter issues, like keeping the nation safe and prosperous. When there are millions of Americans hurting in a terrible economy, platitudes and public relations spin can only go so far. After a while, people actually want to know what’s going on.
