In the UK newspapers are clearly and openly associated with political parties. The Telegraph supports the Conservative Party to the extent that it’s wagginshly called “the Torygraph”. The Daily Mirror supports Labour.
Something of the same sort has happened here with television news. Fox News is thought of, at least by Democrats, as being a Republican news channel. MSNBC is widely thought of as Democratic news.
In a finding that I’m sure will be bitterly disputed by Democrats opinion polling has recently found Fox News, true to its catchphrase, to be the most trusted name in news. Tom Bevan remarks:
How many times have we heard someone say that Fox News and MSNBC are simply mirror images of each other? The numbers from the Quinnipiac poll show that comparison is wrong. One of the reasons Fox News keeps winning is that it has managed to build a solid reputation for its news coverage, one that extends beyond right-leaning viewers. And one of the reasons MSNBC keeps losing is that its programming – even during the daytime – has become so opinion driven that not even its fellow ideological travelers view it as a trustworthy source of news any more.
This is not a new finding. Nearly ten years ago I reported here on multiple impartial sources which found that Fox’s news coverage was the least biased. That has continued. Here’s a reference to a Pew study a few years ago. Here’s one to an earlier Pew study. Note that this is referring to the news coverage not the opinion coverage.
What leaps out to me in Tom’s post is how untrusted the broadcast news has become.
By and large I don’t follow the television news at all anymore. It must have been a half dozen years or more since I’ve even glanced at Fox News and I’ve never watched MSNBC. I’ve found it unwatchable. I get almost all of my news online and, shall we say, cast a wide net. I read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and Al Jazeera, which I have found to have remarkably good news coverage. For sub-Saharan African news I generally check in with the French language media which I have found to have much more coverage and I check in frequently on the Russian language media which always has a drastically different point-of-view than anything you’ll see in the States.
I don’t think those two studies support the claim as they don’t really look at news content in any systematic way. The first link merely notes that 85% of MSNBC air time is taken up by opinion shows. CNN and Fox were at about 50%, with Fox just a bit heavier than CNN. The second piece simply cites the percentage of negative coverage for McCain vs Obama during part of the election. The obvious problem there is trying to determine what percentage of negative coverage was actually merited. Since Obama won the election, would unbiased coverage mean that McCain should have had more negative coverage, or was the public wrong and Obama should have had more? I think I will just stay with my working assumption that they are both pretty biased if and until I see a study that makes any headway in resolving the issue.
Have to agree on Al Jazeera and hard to avoid the NYT and WSJ. Along these same lines I think the work of Gentkow (2014 Clark Medal) highlighted by Tim Taylor showing that the shift from newspapers to TV has had negative effects on the electorate is interesting.
http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-economics-of-media-bias.html
Steve
You cannot include MSNBC in a news survey. MSNBC does not do any straight newscasts anymore, and other than Andrea Mitchell, there are no actual journalists. (Chuck Todd is gone to my knowledge.) They do opinion all day, and when a news story breaks, the opinion hosts often muck it up badly. It would be like letting the cast of The Price is Right do a breaking news story. It is not really their fault.
CNN has actual journalists, but they have pushed them into advocacy journalism.
On Fox, the opinion shows will have the journalists on to report the stories, and they will try to get them to give an opinion. They will give an analysis, but the older ones and many of the younger ones will stubbornly refuse to enter into the opinion arena. Shepard Smith is the closest a straight news person comes to advocacy journalism.
I will catch Fox when I am eating lunch. For breaking news, I will cycle between Fox and CNN, but I will concentrate on Fox usually. I only bother with local news for weather events. Otherwise, I can more or less watch a rerun. Same crap, different day.
I used to monitor MSNBC and dailykos, but they turned into nonsense and a sewer. I stopped watching most of the Fox opinion shows because they are nonsense. The OTB comments are mostly the same nonsense. It is the same crap presented in different ways, and the guests/commenters all say the same crap in different ways. Are they that stupid, or do they think I am that stupid?
Presently, I am living in my own little world. I have my controller. I have my mods. I have my Steam account, and until the PC port of GTA 5 drops, me and my girls are roaming the countryside, having adventures, and causing havoc.
Also, the idea of an unbiased newspaper is a recent development.
Dave Schuler: Nearly ten years ago I reported here on multiple impartial sources which found that Fox’s news coverage was the least biased. That has continued. Here’s a reference to a Pew study a few years ago.
That just shows the mix of news and opinion.
Dave Schuler: Here’s one to an earlier Pew study.
It just shows bias if you think negative stories about Obama and McCain should have been evenly divided, when someone in the “reality-based community” might point to the many missteps of the McCain campaign.
Tom Bevan: Only one-in-10 Americans now trust the news coverage of any of the “Big Threeâ€
False and misleading statement. The right is concentrated on Fox, while the middle and left divide their votes among the rest.
Dave Schuler: What leaps out to me in Tom’s post is how untrusted the broadcast news has become.
The data you provided doesn’t show that. Nor would a popularity contest necessarily represent who provides the best and least biased news.
Fox News is propaganda. Their biggest mistruth is claiming to be “fair and balanced”. Consider that Brian Williams was pulled from the air, while Bill O’Reilly continues to pontificate, even reveling in the controversy. Being an opinion show does not diminish the responsibility to tell the truth.
But that’s part of America now, where the opposition party writes letters to foreign adversaries warning them that the U.S. is not a reliable negotiating partner.
I think almost everything one reads or hears contains some kind of bias, in what points are emphasized, de-emphasized, or left out altogether. Why I find Fox better, though, than the rest is that it seems to display a broader array of news, and have more robust debates between opposing R & D POVs. One can at least hear both sides of a newsstory most of the time, and then decide who and what they believe or support. Obviously, this is still only second-hand offerings, as the only way you can be sure of anything is to observe it yourself.
One news source who I find as credible as anyone is Sharyl Attkisson, a former CBS investigative reporter, now a freelance journalist who has occasionally appeared on Fox. Her book, Stonewalled, details a press who is selective in it’s presentation of the news, ascribing more to stories that support who they support and forget the rest of the news. More and more, you hear complaints about the lack of transparency, access, cooperation, and even accurate interpretation of events from this WH, which is then not even questioned or probbed by the MSM. These are coming from people all over the political spectrum, and should be worrisome to those who are looking to be informed, rather than simply have their own opinions and stances validated.
It just shows bias if you think negative stories about Obama and McCain should have been evenly divided, when someone in the “reality-based community†might point to the many missteps of the McCain campaign.
How exactly does the “reality based community” know whether or not the Obama campaign had a similar number of missteps that might have gone unreported? That’s the problem- once the news is filtered you don’t know what was filtered out.
Re: O’Reilly- I’ve noticed that lefties are smelling blood in the water but even if he has fabricated things (which would not surprise me), he’s not a news anchor. I don’t know that anyone would have demanded the firing of a pundit from MSNBC over similar embellishments. Maybe some would, but I doubt it would have had traction.
CNN has actual journalists, but they have pushed them into advocacy journalism.
Hands up, don’t shoot!
For CNN, the push is about ratings not ideology. If one of their anchors was trying to capture the UFO market, they would have let him run with it. Oh wait, …
Do not be shocked if one of their anchors comes out as a furry who is a into S&M.
If it’s about ratings, their strategy isn’t working.
I do not know what happened to CNN. At one time, they were the go to place for news, but for some reason, they lost it. Their straight news was mostly unbiased, but after Larry King left, their night time lineup went to hell. It was probably in the toilet already, but he was keeping it afloat.
I try to watch them during the day, but I just cannot get into it. I think I know the Fox formula, and I know when to fast-forward or tune-out their bias. (Fox is really unfair and balanced.)
CStanley: How exactly does the “reality based community†know whether or not the Obama campaign had a similar number of missteps that might have gone unreported?
Fox News would report it ad nauseum. Fox News makes an explicit effort to control the news for the benefit of their partisan causes.
“It just shows bias if you think negative stories about Obama and McCain should have been evenly divided, when someone in the “reality-based community†might point to the many missteps of the McCain campaign.”
To me this kind of demonstrates the crux of the problem. Bias is measured as a partisan horse-race with the various stakeholders only recognizing criticism of the other side as legitimate. Judgments about what constitute a “misstep” when it comes to a political race cannot really be made fairly in most instances. I
“Consider that Brian Williams was pulled from the air, while Bill O’Reilly continues to pontificate, even reveling in the controversy. Being an opinion show does not diminish the responsibility to tell the truth.”
Opinion has no responsibility to the truth which is why it’s called “opinion.” O’Reilly, in his current job, cannot be compared to a news anchor who does have an obligation to report accurately and completely. O’Reilly makes it pretty clear that “truth” on his show is whatever his opinion happens to be.
The trouble is, I doubt many Americans can tell the difference between the two. There is a huge difference between, for example, Shep Smith’s hour on Fox and Bill O’Reilly’s hour, but it’s not exactly advertised that one is “news” and the other is an extended op-ed. I think the people who read this blog are atypical and are probably a lot more savvy news consumers than the typical American who doesn’t follow current events or politics closely.
And then you have these hybrid shows that appear to be straight news but then have a short opinion segment at the beginning or end that is anything but. Neil Cavuto in particular comes to mind. It reminds me of the 700 club which would have a pseudo-news segment followed by analysis from Pat Robertson. The woman (I forget her name) who always hosts win Robertson would nod her head at the appropriate times and never fail to ask Pat the right questions. The morning jaw-jaw programs are similar – they switch back and forth between news and (usually) idiotic banter and opinion about what was just reported. I think there’s a video somewhere showing all of Matt Lauer’s stupid questions and reactions.
Additionally, the choice of “analysts” to provide context in both the opinion and news shows are a huge source of bias. These guests fill very predictable roles.
As far as “news” goes, I do like Shep Smith’s show (when I watch TV news, which is rarely), because he is able to humanize the news without condescension or outright partisan bias. I think he was great covering Katrina, for example. He’s got personality to boot, unlike Brian Williams.
We usually have CNN on at work and it’s clearly focused on tabloid journalism for the most part. Endless live segments covering the trial or plane crash du jour and the repetition of the same story over and over and over….it’s a far cry from the early 1990’s. CNN obviously cut their journalist ranks significantly as there isn’t enough reporting from the field to fill the air time, so it’s live coverage of the same thing (see any John Stewart lampoon) and repeated coverage of sensationalist topics.
Everytime I turn on MSNBC I find it’s pretty much a straight opinion channel aimed at the Progressive demographic.
NPR is still my favorite source of news outside the internet. I think they do have a slight liberal bias, but I don’t think it’s intentional and I think they try to get it right most of the time. Too many human interest stuff for my taste, however. I switch between NPR and spotify/Pandora to and from work.
I used to watch the PBS “News Hour” faithfully, but it’s not compatible with my work schedule anymore.
@Zachriel
I am not threadjacking, but you have gotten caught up in an OTB thread about (drum roll): Florida State Employees Ordered Not To Refer To “Climate Change†Or “Global Warmingâ€
I referred to my comment over here, and I have been talking about you. I am about tired of them. I really do not want to get into it with you, but honestly, I do appreciate the quality of debate.
The NYT airbrushes out former presidents from Selma march pics, so I’m going with newspapers on integrity.
Andy: Opinion has no responsibility to the truth which is why it’s called “opinion.†O’Reilly, in his current job, cannot be compared to a news anchor who does have an obligation to report accurately and completely.
Everyone has a responsibility to the truth. Some things simply are not a matter of opinion. It’s not an opinion whether O’Reilly was there when someone shot himself. It’s not an opinion whether O’Reilly was in the Falkland Islands during the war.
“Everyone has a responsibility to the truth. Some things simply are not a matter of opinion.”
Well, that’s your opinion….