RESEARCH EXPLAINS POLARIZATION BETWEEN AMERICAN LIBERALS & CONSERVATIVES

 

Once again, a Pew Research Poll shows the divided between Fox News viewers and everybody else.

Remember the show from years ago, “Who Do You Trust?”?  Well, due to our wonderful access to the Internet, this is an interesting political question when you ask both Liberals and Conservatives.  And the answer to that question is very different from one of those groups to the other.

But good ole Pew Research has once again jumped into the fray, and they have listed 36 popular media sources and asked both liberal and conservative respondents how much they trusted each of the sources.  As expected, the two group’s responses were vastly different.

The source choices went from the mostly liberal sources like the Daily Show or ThinkProgress, and some were totally conservative such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.  But most were fairly straightforward broadcast organizations with no overt political agenda, like NPR, various network news, CNN, and even the New York Times.

As Pew stated, the final results were astonishing!!!!

Out of the 36 sources, consistently the liberals trusted 28 of the 36 sources which were a mix of liberal and mainstream news sources. Most liberal respondents generally agreed, holding out a little more skepticism for overtly liberal ideological sources like Daily Kos or ThinkProgress.  But they did not actually distrust them. The only news sources that liberals did not trust were overtly right-wing ones, such as Fox News, the Blaze, Breitbart, or the Rush Limbaugh’s show.

Now, when you look at those that call themselves conservatives, it was a whole different story.

Just as in the 1950’s, when the conservatives thought there was a "commie under every rock", these individuals see betrayers and liars around every corner. Consistently, the strongly conservative individuals distrusted 24 out of the 36 listed outlets.  Those that were "mostly conservative", distrusted 15 of the 36 sources.  But they were also very skeptical of quite a few more.

This conservative hostility wasn’t just for the well-known liberal sources like MSNBC. The strong conservatives hated all network news including the major national outlets and CNN and NPR, but not the Wall Street Journal, (Probably because it’s now owned by Fox’s Rupert Murdoch).

The respondents who were mostly conservative fared much better.  But they were still hostile to the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as skeptical of mainstream organizations like CBS and NBC News.

OK, the fact that the conservatives are this paranoid is bad enough, but it becomes totally frightening when you realize who the conservatives actually trust in the media.

The consistently strong conservatives only trusted eight media sources when compared to the 28 that liberals trusted.  Of those trusted eight, only one, the Wall Street Journal, has anything approaching respectable reporting or reliable information.   But if you go to the Wall Street’s op-ed page, it is a train wreck of right-wing distortions and misinformation.

The mostly conservative people were a little more open-minded.  They usually trusted USA Today and ABC News, but still were supportive of openly distorting sources like Fox News or the Drudge Report.

The area that really came into question were the actual individuals that the conservatives did put their trust in.  Both the strong and mostly conservative people seem to love Glenn Beck, even though he’s a well-known purveyor of outrageous conspiracy theories. Breitbart, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly also continue to rate high, despite their shared history of championing right-wing fringe characters and far-right bogus ideas.

But the most frightening was the reach of Fox News.

I know it seems amazing, but Fox News rated as the only “real news source” consistent with conservatives.  (Honestly, they think Fox News is real!)   With 47% of them citing Fox News as their main source of news. Nothing even comes close to touching Fox.  The second most common answer, “local radio” was cited by only 11% of the consistent conservatives. Eighty-eight percent of consistent conservatives trusted Fox News.

Mostly conservative and even many “mixed” conservatives also liked Fox News.  Amazing.

Even Pew had to say that, “Watching Fox News actually makes you less informed than if you don’t watch any news at all.”  Previous Pew Research studies have shown this statement to be true.  Fox News viewers rated the absolute lowest in ability to correctly answer questions on a quiz about recent news events. People who didn’t take in any news programs at all, did better than Fox News viewers on the quizzes. NPR listeners rated the best.

Consistent liberals in the Pew research were big fans of NPR. It was the second most common outlet cited as a favorite by consistent liberals, topped only by CNN.

The overall results of the Pew Research was that Fox News is the number one reason for the political polarization in this country.  Large numbers of this country listen mostly or solely to the Fox News relentless stream of misinformation.  As usually happens, as the Baby Boomers age, these Boomers usually become more conservative.  These people are becoming more conservative and those who were already conservative are becoming even more hardline. If you have any Fox viewers in your family, you probably already know this, but now Pew has given us the cold, hard facts to confirm those suspicions.

This research should be taken as reality as Pew Research has historically been very accurate in coming up with truthful results. 

 

Unfortunately, I would suspect that most conservatives will not believe any of these results, which I can also guarantee will never appear anywhere on Fox News.

Copyright G.Ater  2015