Poll: Huge Majority Of Republicans Say Fox News Is Reliable
A running theme of this blog is the deepening isolation of Republicans, and buried in this new Research 2000 poll is an interesting data point: A very sizable majority of Republicans says Fox News is reliable.
The poll finds that among GOPers, 24% think Fox is “extremely reliable,” and 41% think Fox is “reliable.” That’s a total of 65% of Republicans who see Fox as reliable or very much so.
Meanwhile, only 20% of Republicans think CNN is reliable.
Even more interesting, perhaps, is how many Republicans only get their info from Fox, as compared to the other cable networks. A surprising 74% of GOPers “never” watch CNN, and an even higher amount, 89%, never watch MSNBC.
By contrast, Dems see CNN as more reliable than the left-leaning network (presuming you buy into the idea that MSNBC is left-leaning, and Dems watch CNN more often than they watch MSNBC.
This general trend among Republicans was to be expected, of course, but who knew that it was quite this dramatic?
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Wow, that sure is a startling poll result!
Almost as startling as the revelation that a mangy mongrel has fleas!!!!!
Dunno, Liam, I thought the trend was even more dramatic than you might expect
Yes, and when they’re not nodding at or tsking with Fox anchors, they’re posting on Politico.
Of course it’s reliable. Fox is the gate keeper of the Republican Fantasy World. If FNC isn’t reliable their whole world crumbles.
So let’s ponder what the chances are that American political discourse will improve – ever – so long as this situation of FOX operating as it does and self-identified Republicans in such numbers gaining their “information” from that source?
Must admit I’m the mirror image. I never watch Fox, rarely watch CNN, keep MSNBC on as my background music most days. If I make any changes it will be to read more novels.
CNN and MSNBC are just slightly more reliable – and less leftwing – than the source of this poll, Daily Kos. Please Greg tell us next what Josh Marshall thinks about Fox News and the GOP. That will be very informative.
This poll was conducted by a nonpartisan firm, Research 2000
@Greg,
Not really Greg. Those who now identify as Republicans have shrunk down to a far right hardcore base, and they are the sort that blindly follow Fox and The Big Fat Pillbilly.
They proudly refer to their selves as “Ditto Heads”. That says it all.
Fox and Limberjaw have thoughtless cult followings, which pretty much describes what remains of those who identify as being Republicans.
This is so weird – how the hell did this happen to America?
Fooking Rupert Murdoch -
In a way, I think that it is a good thing that all the mindless sheep are grazing only in those Flocking Fox pastures.
Their nature is such, that they would always blindly follow any right wing demagogue that came along.
They are not the type of people who are capable of self reflection and independent thinking.
The same poor benighted souls(bless their hearts) who follow Fox, were also the same people who mindlessly took their their marching orders from a cluster of Hillbilly Ayatollahs.
@greg: Do you have some hard data to confirm that Fox News Channel is less “reliable” than MSNBC or CNN?
What does “reliable” even mean in this poll? Respondents might not associate “reliable” with truthful – they might associate reliable with coverage of events they feel important.
“Since Fox is already the network of choice for conservatives, the ratings indicate it must be drawing in more moderates and even liberals, said Bernard Goldberg… The three networks had about the same number of Independent followers, and Fox had more Democratic followers than CNN and MSNBC had GOP fans.”
O for god’s sake sbj! You have GOT to be kidding. The network of Glenn Beck and the rest of the liars?
Come the **** on -
@ sbj, you’re an idiot. Why did you run and hide on our health care discussion? Boo!
@tena: Beck is an opinion show. I am wondering if there is some hard data to show that FNC is less “reliable?”
Here ya go, sbj: enjoy!
http://mediamatters.org/topic/onlyonfox/
Just so everyone knows, sbj, the big bad Libertarian, admitted that he isn’t against government funded anything. How in the world can anyone claim to be Libertarian and be for government funded health care for both public and private plans? Oh it’s because he’s a REPUBLICAN who is scared to admit it.
No Tena, that’s not reliable. It’s an islamofascistsocialistcommie rag. Prove him wrong but only by using Fox News links. You should know this by now.
@tena: ?
That’s about as convincing as a link to Newsbusters!
Hard data, proof that FNC is less “reliable” than CNN or MSNBC.
Fox was founded as the Propaganda arm of The Republican Party. People, such as Roger Ailes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ailes
were brought over from the party to establish the Fox Spews, Right Wing Propaganda operations.
It is what they established it to be.
Hell, even Fox itself, no longer tries to hide that fact. No longer do they claim to be Fair and Balanced.
What their real mission banner is:
WE DISTORT, YOU MIGHT BITE!
@chris: You are really starting to creep me out, dude. Hey Greg – there’s no way this guy can get my personal info, can he?
@ Tena, told ya, hahhahahahahahhahahaha…hard data such as in links to Fox News and NRO.
@ sbj, creep you out by proving you wrong?
| August 17th, 2009 at 01:03 pm
@chris: You are really starting to creep me out, dude. Hey Greg – there’s no way this guy can get my personal info, can he?
…………………………
Only if he has an in with Bush/Cheney/Rove, and can have them apply their warrant less domestic spying apparatus.
You are confusing him with your beloved T*rd Blossom’s Stasi goons.
“your beloved T*rd Blossom’s Stasi goons”
wtf?
No wonder you love FOX. You fit right in with all those cult followers.
T*rd Blossom was engaged in trying to force Federal Prosecutors to frame elected Democrats, and he purged the Party of those principled federal attorneys who would not go along with his fascist efforts.
If you think that Rove wasn’t using the warrant less wire taps in order to try and dig up dirt to use in those purges, just like the East German Stasi did, then you really are a Gold Star Fox Spews Consumer.
@liam: Forgot to take your meds today?
You can’t handle the truth, so rush back to your warm reassuring lie fest in the bosom of your Uncle Rupert.
“If you think that Rove wasn’t using the warrant less wire taps in order to try and dig up dirt to use in those purges”
That and the fact the Delay was in charge of lobbying junket for Repugs and thereby found out who likes little girls and who likes little boys and who is on drugs and who is an alcoholic and who is taking bribes and he used it to run the House.
As the Republican Party continues to shrink, they have been distilled down to a thick syrupy paste, a highly concentrated goo consisting almost exclusively of ignorant, bigoted, moribund cave dwellers. It should not be too surprising that these dimwits would look to FauxNews as some great oracle of THE TRUTH.
FauxNews has made its bid for the title as the latter day Ministry of Truth. Top to bottom, they engage in the Orwellian practice of transcript revision to expunge any vestigial facts from the record. I’m not sure that even Pravda engaged in this level of rewriting of the historical record. Show me a single example of the “liberal media” engaging in this practice even once. I could cite dozens, if not hundreds of such examples at FauxNews.
The Obama Administration should yank the White House press credentials from all FauxNews clowns. They will howl, but that’s what they are doing now anyway. FauxNews is a party organ. Precisely which organ they most resemble is up for debate.
@Greg:
“…but who knew that it was quite this dramatic?”
*raises hand*
@ sbj, FNC actually reported that Obama attended a madrassa and that he wanted to impose sharia law in America. How less reliable can you get??
Of course Fox is reliable. They reliably mirror their viewer’s world view. If you think Obama is not a citizen, you’re going to think a “news” network that backs that up is reliable. Not a surprising poll at all.
What are the demograpics on Fox Spews? I expect that it must tilt heavily top viewers over sixty five. I am older than that, but I never bother with any TV news.
The funny thing is that Fox Network actually runs programs that Lampoon the hell out of the elderly, such as Abe Simpson, and Peter Griffin’s father.
Let’s delve a little deeper, shall we? 68% of Dems never watch Fox News – pretty comparable to 74% Rep-CNN. Besides that, 38% of Reps never watch Fox, either. So, I’m not sure it’s really that high a percentage that only watch Fox.
As for MSNBC, they are so bad that over half the Dems (53%) never watch them, so the Rep number can’t be too surprising.
Oh, yeah…Meanwhile, only 19% of Democrats think Fox is reliable.
Apparently Dick Cheney’s head will explode if he is ever subjected to the truth. All the televisions in his hotel suites need to be preset to the Fox News Channel.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0322061cheney1.html
@sbj
Iraq has no WMDs.
Obama was born in the US.
Fox News is unreliable.
Cubbiechuck,
From which body cavity did you extract your statistical “facts?” Anybody can make up numbers. Unless you cite some credible source for yours, you have zero credibility.
Furthermore, your analysis of the numbers you provide is intellectually dishonest. You start from the premise of “they do it too!” which is a familiar canard of the Republicans when confronted with their transgressions. I’ve seen the tactic employed in the healthcare debate with Rs wringing their hands over the incivility at town hall meetings. Never mind that most of the rancor is due to the ignorant Republican sheeple bleating precisely as they have been instructed.
I am willing to bet a couple of paychecks that the demographic profile of the average FauxNews viewer and those of MSNBC and CNN are quite different. FauxNews devotees are far more likely to watch FauxNews to the exclusion of all other sources. A single FauxNews zombie who watches 5-6 hours a day would tend to inflate ratings numbers in a way quite favorable to FauxNews. How many CNN or MSNBC viewers fit that profile? Likewise, I suspect that FauxNews viewers represent a much more homogenous demographic along political affiliation, religion, age range, and level of education. I’d also bet that FauxNews viewers are the least educated of any news source in any medium.
I am assuming that by citing a “statistic” such as the gem, “19% of Democrats think Fox is reliable” is meant to imply some sort of parity between the intolerance of Republicans and those of Democrats. That is the same sort of “logic” which would lead to the following:
1. Abraham Lincoln was Republican and elected to the presidency twice.
2. Abraham Lincoln was a great leader and a hero to our nation.
3. George W. Bush was Republican and elected to the presidency twice.
4. Therefore, George W. Bush was a great leader and a hero to our nation.
Notice, I didn’t recklessly sling around numbers and call them statistics to buttress my arguments. However, if it would help, I could bend over and extract some numbers for your perusal.
sbj – re bias/reliability etc
Annenburg’s “Echo Chamber” is chalk-full of hard data (not all of which would please my side). But you’d have to buy it, read it and deal honestly with it. You’d possibly be less convinced by Alterman’s “What Liberal Media” but that wouldn’t be because of any insufficiency in his scholarly standards. And, in fact, you cast aside David Brock too facilely. He operated as a propagandist flack for the right earlier in his life and is familiar with the system and the techniques. The proper complaint against Media Matters is that it concentrates on one side of the equation.
To make this all more accessible for you (and others) wanting good hard data, turn here… http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php?nid=&id=&pnt=102&lb=brusc
Not sure if you’ll see this so I’ll likely provide it again when I see you on a more current thread.
Gaman, I don’t know what got your panties in a wad, but my statistical facts came from the same study (referenced at the top of the article) as Mr. Sargent’s. It’s called verification. Try it sometime. So, I guess the body cavity it came from wsa a Daily Kos cavity.
I was just showing that you can make the same study say different things.
@bernie: Interesting – thank you. I’ll note that ALL of the networks seem to have an issue with misperceptions. Also note that although the frequency of misperceptions rises with Fox the study does not claim (unless I misread) that Fox CAUSES the misperceptions. I’d also note that while they say demographics can’t explain away the total difference in frequency here it would certainly seem to account for some of it. Most interesting to me is the fact that ONLY READERS of news seem to have more accurate perceptions: “Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. ONLY those who mostly get their news from print media have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention.” That seems to bolsetr my contention that Fox is not much worse than MSNBC or CNN. And I’d note that this study seems to deal only with matters specifically regarding the war – a highly charged and emotional issue for many – and I am not sure at all that the results here can be applied to the news provided by Fox in other matters or in general. Personally, I listen to NPR every morning so you can take that for what it’s worth. (And I don’t much appreciate your implication that I’m a dishonest player with your line, “But you’d have to buy it, read it and deal honestly with it.”) Afraid you’re not going to be able to sell me on Alterman or Media Matters…