Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Study: Viewers Say TV News Lacks Credibility; CNN Still the Most Trusted Name in Cable News
SourceL Media Life According to the latest study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, fewer than a quarter of the 3,204 adults surveyed believe all or most of what they see on NBC News (23 percent), ABC News (22 percent) or CBS News (22 percent), continuing a downward trend in credibility that stretches back to the mid-1980s. For the sake of comparison, the Pew study conducted in 1998 found NBC and ABC tied as the most trusted broadcast news organizations, with 30 percent of those surveyed saying that believed what was reported on both networks. CBS News had a 28 percent approval rate eight years ago.
Cable has fared no better. Back in 1998, CNN boasted a stellar 42 percent approval rate, only to drop to 28 percent this year. Rival Fox News Channel has remained steady since it was first added to the Pew study in 2000; that year, 26 percent of respondents said they trusted FNC, a figure that is more or less consistent with the 25 percent approval rate in 2006.
Predictably enough, partisan politics plays a significant role as far as perceived credibility is concerned. At 32 percent, FNC gets the nod for the highest credibility rating among Republicans and the lowest among Democrats (22 percent). Only the print publication Newsweek is met with more skepticism by Democrats (21 percent). Those numbers neatly reverse themselves when CNN comes into play, as 32 percent of Democrats surveyed said they believed all or most of what they saw on the news net, while only 22 percent of Republicans reported the same.
CNN is by no means the least trusted news net among GOP respondents, as every outlet from C-SPAN (21 percent) to MSNBC (18 percent) scored lower on the credibility scale. NBC News (19 percent), ABC News (18 percent) and CBS News (15 percent) also were met with a great deal of cynicism from Republicans, who expressed less confidence than Democrats in the credibility of nearly every major news outlet, with the exception of FNC and the Wall Street Journal.
Cable has fared no better. Back in 1998, CNN boasted a stellar 42 percent approval rate, only to drop to 28 percent this year. Rival Fox News Channel has remained steady since it was first added to the Pew study in 2000; that year, 26 percent of respondents said they trusted FNC, a figure that is more or less consistent with the 25 percent approval rate in 2006.
Predictably enough, partisan politics plays a significant role as far as perceived credibility is concerned. At 32 percent, FNC gets the nod for the highest credibility rating among Republicans and the lowest among Democrats (22 percent). Only the print publication Newsweek is met with more skepticism by Democrats (21 percent). Those numbers neatly reverse themselves when CNN comes into play, as 32 percent of Democrats surveyed said they believed all or most of what they saw on the news net, while only 22 percent of Republicans reported the same.
CNN is by no means the least trusted news net among GOP respondents, as every outlet from C-SPAN (21 percent) to MSNBC (18 percent) scored lower on the credibility scale. NBC News (19 percent), ABC News (18 percent) and CBS News (15 percent) also were met with a great deal of cynicism from Republicans, who expressed less confidence than Democrats in the credibility of nearly every major news outlet, with the exception of FNC and the Wall Street Journal.
# posted by ATN @ 2:44 PM 
