The Most Trusted Name In News? It's Not Who You Think
Shawn M GriffithsThe American public is more skeptical of traditional and mainstream media outlets now than at any point in modern US history. So that leaves the question, in the era of "fake news," which outlets do Americans trust most?
Here's a hint: Cable news is not doing so hot.
In fact, while CNN still runs with the moniker, "the most trusted name in news," the results of a new survey from the Trusting News Project reveals this to be far from the truth.
While it has been easy to pick on CNN lately, Fox News and MSNBC rank worse in the cable news sphere. However, the new survey found that none of these channels have a net positive trust rating.
According to the survey, the top ten most trusted news sources are:
- The Economist
- Public television
- Reuters
- BBC
- NPR
- PBS
- The Guardian
- The Wall Street Journal
- Los Angeles Times
- The Dallas Morning News
This is not the first survey either that found The Economist at the top or near the top of the most trusted news sources.
According to its Wikipedia page:
"The Economist takes an editorial stance of classical and economic liberalism that supports free trade, globalisation, free immigration, and cultural liberalism (such as supporting legal recognition for same-sex marriage or drug liberalization). The publication has described itself as '...a product of the Caledonian liberalism of Adam Smith and David Hume'"
The top ten least trusted sources for news, according to the survey:
- Occupy Democrats
- BuzzFeed
- Breitbart
- Social media
- Trump
- Infowars
- Yahoo
- Internet
- Huffington Post
- The Blaze
It is interesting that they include the president as a news source in the survey.
Social media is listed as the fourth least trusted source for news. However, Pew Research found in 2016 that two-thirds of Americans get their news from social media -- the biggest source being Facebook.
It will be interesting to see how consumer habits shift; especially, with the escalation of fake news from all over.
According to the Trusting News Project, over two-thirds of Americans have a paid subscription or "provide financial support" to at least one news source. Liberal respondents, according to the survey, are more likely to trust and pay for news than conservative respondents.
What do you think? Who is the most trusted name in news?
Photo Credit: rangizzz / shutterstock.com
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