Trusting Fox

Another poll confirms that Americans trust it more than other media outlets.

Ramesh Ponnuru
Friday, January 29, 2010

Fox News is Americans’ most trusted source of news: That’s what Public Policy Polling reported earlier this week. ABC’s director of polling disputed the poll’s findings largely because of its use of “robopolling.” But now a second poll using a different methodology — and human callers — has reached a similar conclusion.

In a poll commissioned by National Review Institute, McLaughlin & Associates found that Fox News was the top response from likely voters who were asked what source of news about politics and government they most trusted. Thirty-six percent of respondents picked Fox News, compared to 20 percent who picked CNN and 6 percent who picked MSNBC. NBC and ABC each got 6 percent, too, and CBS 5.

Since McLaughlin was polling likely voters and Republicans are more enthusiastic about the coming elections than Democrats are, his sample is more Republican than the population at large. But McLaughlin finds that it’s not just Republicans who trust Fox. It was also the top response from independent voters, 31 percent of whom listed it as the news source they most trust. Fifteen percent of independents listed CNN. (MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and CBS got 6, 6, 6, and 4 percent respectively.)

Democrats were more likely to say that they trusted CNN than Fox News (30 vs. 18 percent). But even among Democrats, twice as many people trusted Fox News as MSNBC (18 vs. 9 percent).

Earlier this week, I reported on other findings from the poll — such as the electorate’s strongly positive views toward conservative alternatives on health care. Some other results from McLaughlin & Associates:

- 67 percent of voters favor expanding the tax credit for children to $3,000, while only 24 percent disapprove.

- 64 percent of voters want to cut corporate taxes; 26 percent disapprove.

- 83 percent favor cutting taxes on small business; only 11 percent disagree.

- 72 percent say that gas-tax revenues should be returned to the states so that they can decide which road projects to fund.

- Upon being informed that the Department of Education has 100,000 employees who make an average $100,000 per year, 65 percent of voters favor abolishing the department and sending the money to the states to spend on schools.

One reform that conservatives have been discussing over the last year does not fare so well. A payroll-tax holiday is opposed by a 47 percent plurality of voters and supported by 39 percent; even a Republican-leaning electorate is not willing to risk threatening funding for Social Security and Medicare.