Thursday, January 28, 2010

More on the TV Poll

I got a good question about our TV news poll from earlier this week: what's the deal with the Democrats who like Fox News and the Republicans who don't?

Not surprisingly there is a more conservative bent to the Democrats who trust Fox News. For instance 36% of them oppose the Democratic health care plan compared to only 16% of the party's voters overall. But to a larger extent it's a product of people who just generally trust the media across the board- more than half of the Fox trusting Democrats also say they trust ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC.

It's a relatively similar story with the Republicans who don't trust Fox News. 47% of them are moderates, compared to just 30% of GOP voters overall. But 56% of them are people who just seem not to trust any media- they give Fox News bad marks but they do the same for the other four as well.

I would definitely put this poll among the top five most discussed ones we've ever conducted- debates about the media certainly seem to get folks riled up.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Jensen, I think you missed the lede in favor of a flashy headline. Looking at the crosstabs (thanks for providing them), it appears more that the conclusion is that conservatives trust FOX News, and only FOX News. Blind devotion, if you will.

FOX ends up 'winning' most trusted in this poll, only because conservatives so strongly supported them, while just as strongly downgrading any and all of FOX's competitors. Moderates and even liberals were more.. open-minded.

Also, I wonder about the sample that shows an even split of McCain and Obama voters. Though maybe it's within the margin of error, or possibly some form of buyers' remorse?

Unknown said...

I read the article. With raving pompous arrogant lunatics like that you've got to love being part of the left. Remember, a poll is only true if it confirms what they already know. That's why your Massachusetts Senate polls were so awful too.

Mike said...

responding to anonymous: Liberals are open minded?? Who's perpetuating that myth? Someone needs to learn the definition.

Jim Glass said...

Mr. Jensen, I think you missed the lede in favor of a flashy headline ... FOX ends up 'winning' most trusted in this poll, only because conservatives so strongly supported them

Not at all. Indeed, the most interesting thing in the poll to me is the take of the independents.

It's the independents who determine election outcomes, who voted in Obama and the Dems in 2008, and who have turned against them this year. Brown carried the independents in Mass. by 50 points (!).

In this poll the independents trust nobody. (They ain't stupid!) But they distrust Fox much less than they distrust the rest...

Independents
trust distrust net

Fox 41 44 -3
CNN 33 45 -12
CBS 22 51 -29
NBC 22 52 -30
ABC 21 53 -32

That's the lede to me.

lannie said...

No one should or could be all liberal, all conservative and be normal..its unbalanced. We should not use terms intended to inflame only.

I have taken several polls only to find they ask the same question in different ways. This tends to make the polling inaccurate.
Plus it all to often boxes you in a corner cause some questions are not a yes or no or just black and white.

 
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