Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Most/Least Trusted News Sources

Christopher Ingraham notes the most and least trusted news sources from a Pew study in The Washington Post.

Overall, four of the top five least-trusted news outlets have a strong conservative lean: Limbaugh, Fox News, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. MSNBC rounds out the list. The most trusted news outlets, on the other hand, tend to be major TV networks: CNN, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, with Fox at No. 5.

The Pew Study notes that "liberals, overall, trust a much larger mix of news outlets than others do. Of the 36 different outlets considered, 28 are more trusted than distrusted by consistent liberals." By contrast, among conservatives "there are 24 sources that draw more distrust than trust."

This widespread distrust of the media is one of the factors behind the so-called conservative echo chamber, whereby conservative Americans get their news primarily from sources that reinforce their already existing beliefs. There's something of an echo chamber effect among liberal Americans, too, but the Pew numbers show that it's nowhere near as powerful.

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