Pew Confirms: We're Turning Into Media Tribes

Here's a headline. The latest Pew survey informs us that Fox News is viewed by Americans as the most ideological news network of them all. Well, duh. The shocker, I suppose, was that 14% said Fox was "mostly liberal." (I have it on good authority these are many of the same folks who also believe in flying saucers.)

Snarky asides notwithstanding, the data also testify to our propensity to watch news networks which reconfirm preexisting political biases. Consider the following points I lifted from the Pew report:

• Ideology plays a role in how Americans view the networks. 57% of liberals say that Fox News is mostly conservative, compared with 46% of moderates and 44% of conservatives.

• 48% of conservatives find MSNBC to be mostly liberal, compared with 31% of moderates and 29% of liberals.

• 51% of conservatives say CNN is mostly liberal, while 33% of moderates and 28% of liberals agree. (The report found "comparable ideological differences in perceptions of the ideologies of NBC News, ABC News and CBS News.")

• Regular Fox News viewers are more likely than those tuning into other news networks to see those networks as mostly liberal. 48% of regular Fox viewers say the network is mostly conservative. They also believe that featuring hosts of cable news programs with strong political opinions is a good thing. (Bill O'Reilly, you still have a job);

• At the same time, regular viewers of Fox News think the media's in the tank for the administration. About 45% say the press is not sufficiently critical of the president, compared with 15% of regular MSNBC viewers, 23% of regular CNN viewers and 21% of regular nightly network news viewers;

With conservatives settling in at Fox and liberals congregating around CNN and MSNBC, it's interesting to consider what this suggests about Americans' willingness to consider opposing points of view. To be fair, how many people are interested in having their entire world views challenged after a hard day at the office - especially by a talking head shrieking about high crimes and misdemeanors? Hmm. Maybe that explains Jon & Kate Plus Eight.

[quapawsix]

What gets me is when there are important things happening in Washington or in the war the Republicans got us in to they can only find really controversial stuff like Brad and Angeline to report or the Jesus juice crap or or the OB's pick a dog. The one who's post said bring back Walter Cronkite we could only hope that someone might actually report real news instead of BS.

[quapawsix]

The news media needs to change their name to the Ministry of Propaganda or even better they should call themselves The National Inquirer. The last thing they report is the news. These people must thing the American people are stupid, and will believe anything.

[babooph]

All the media is business -is US business liberal?

[Stop_the_crying]

The news is the news. Please bring back Walter. All I want from a news cast are the facts. Thank you. I have more than two brain cells to rub together to form my own conclusions. If you do not like the real news and need to have a schrieking head to tell you what it is then you by all means view the FOX OPINION SHOW. BUTT do not call it the NEWS. It's only one person biases. You have missed the boat and probably thought that you would meet up with W one day and have a beer.

[SHEETPAN]

An very important piece of information was left out of this article. The fact that Fox,s ratings are higher, by far, than any of thier cable competition. The Conservative tribe is growing because they feel they won't get the Conservative viewpoint ANYWHERE else. Broadcast T.V. News and cable news has left them with no alterative. And weather you agree with that take on the news or not. The fact is that that is what the Conservatives believe.

[rsh724]

Uh, no. Fox's demographics skew way older than all other channels. That's because younger people, who are much more likely to be liberal, and certainly far more likely to be politically left of Atilla the Hun, are also much more likely to get their news from the Internet. That's a key reason why MSNBC and CNN's broadcast ratings are lower than Fox. (Younger people are also more likely to view MSNBC, CNN, CBS, and other news channels on the Web.)

Far more Fox viewers are over 60, and are less likely to turn to the Internet for news.

And you're also wrong about all of the ratings; MSNBC sometimes wins the most important demo, the 18-34 age group. But as long as you only get your news from Fox, you'll only know what they want you to know.

You shouldn't rely on only one news source, whatever your political ideology.

[dancingmoon]

I had an epiphany today while completely focused on something totally unrelated.

It came to me that the shrieking talking heads probably have great disdain for their loyal followers.

It must stoke their vanities greatly to know that they can make any outrageous statement, present falsehood as fact, perpetuate demonstrably false rumors and insinuations and it would never in a million years occur to their adoring fans to determine the veracity of these statements for themselves.

It seems they compete with themselves to always exceed their most recent loathsome diatribe.

Yep, I think it gives the shriekers great amusement to hoodwink their followers into believing they empathize with their hopes and desires all the while thinking, gee, they'll believe absolutely anything I tell them. What a bunch of simpletons.

[rafaeldrc]

Though I dislike FOX with a passion, I read it, as I read... TASS, Xinhua, BBC, France 24, Aljazeera (one of the best), European Voice, National Review Online, Financial Times, Economist and all the major US TV network on-lines. I read the on-line newspapers in the USA, too. To get a good feeling of what is going on, or determine who is playing games with the public, you need to be a prolific reader and never become anchored to one source.

[andacar]

What I think is worse is that this was not always the case. I don't remember my parents watching the Huntley Brinkley report because it was "liberal" or "conservative." They watched it because it was good reporting, and they would have been appalled if some ignorant blowhard screamed at them about some stupid opinion of his own on the news. Perhaps the biggest disservice FOX has done us all is to irrevocably polarize the media, and not just the news media. The internet has done the same thing. Instead of creating a forum for opposing views, it has divided us into ideologically pure camps of unalterable opinion. Have you seen what passes for ?discussion? in most of these online commentary sections? People come in, shout, insult, declare their unwavering liberal or conservative bias and then leave.

[cidaia]

The problem is that I don't think I'm alone at ALL in that I don't trust *any* of the mainstream media. I think they're all crooked and manipulative.

I don't think there's a pervasive bias per se - I don't even really think "liberal" and "conservative" are single either-or definitions that can apply here. I do think Fox panders to exactly the same market of people that the other networks freeze out. For instance, when Hillary was running, I noticed the bias so bad it almost hurt: working class people were either represented by foul-mouthed bigots, snarky jokes (Jon Stewart was my hero til I realized he had nothing but contempt for "my people", and based on jokes that would belong to hate groups if they were aimed at a different skin color), and worst of all, rich journalists describing the supposed feeling of real working class people. For instance, after Obama's "great" speech on race, the media ignored real working class protesters who objected to the logic in the assertion "working class people think they have a problem with affirmative action, but really their problem is globalization". Instead, the media did exactly what Obama did - they SUMMARIZED how working class people supposedly really feel.

This group of people is isolated, and so Fox panders to them. Sounds more like good cop - bad cop to me.

[stuart-johns2]

This report is old news really. As far as a difference between Fox and MSNBC. Fox is strickly biased. By that I mean it rarely has opposing views represented on its show, especially the commentaries like Beck and Hannity.

By contrast, MSNBC not only has a republican host in the Morning Joe segment, throughout the day it always presents advocates of opposing views with the exception of Olberman and Maddow. And Maddow occasionally does have opposing views represented though it is admittedly, not common.

But it is true. People do view news sources with preconcieved bias.