This just in: conservatives love Fox News.
That’s just one of a few findings by a new Pew Research study out today. And guess what, it only took them a year to figure it out! That’s right, the smart fellas over at Pew studied political polarization for a year to come to the same conclusions my 13-year old daughter gleaned from a five-minute conversation with her right-of-right grandfather.
Nearly half of those surveyed who were determined “consistently conservative” based on a political questionnaire indicated that Fox News was their most trusted source of information.
You don’t say! Probably because it’s “fair and balanced.”
On the other hand, “consistent liberals” offered a little more variety to their political news repertoire. Those on the political left split their trusted news sources pretty evenly among CNN (15 percent), NPR (13 percent), MSNBC (12 percent) and the New York Times (10 percent.) Oh, and 81 percent of consistently liberal respondents don’t trust Fox News.
There are some not-quite-as-obvious takeaways from this study. Other than “Faux News,” liberals are more likely to trust news outlets than conservatives (unless it’s Fox News.) Consistent liberals trust 28 of 36 news outlets more than they distrust them while conservatives distrust 24 of the news sources listed more than they trusted them. Something tells me those 24 outlets don’t repeatedly bash President Obama and his signature health care law. Of course that’s cause for immediate speculation.
Aside from Fox News, which 88 percent of consistent conservatives indicated they trust, the next three in line are, in order, the Sean Hannity Show, the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Glenn Beck Program. Meanwhile, liberals most trust NPR, PBS and the BBC. Can I just note for a second that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are all self-professed entertainers and many would argue Hannity is too. Liberals trust BuzzFeed more than they trust any of the top four trusted “news” sources among conservatives. Wow.
Ooh, and here’s another fun one: If you’re a conservative, your liberal Facebook friends are more likely to dump you than you are to dump them. I’ve seen this phenomenon. It’s almost as petty as objecting to a fan.
