Fox News was ranked first Wednesday in terms of being both the most and least trusted television network among Americans surveyed recently.
Polling conducted last week by Suffolk University and USA Today asked 1,000 registered U.S. voters to pick from a list media outlets the TV news or commentary sources they trust the most and the least.
Fox News was the most popular answer given by respondents asked to name the TV source they trust the most. About a quarter of voters — 235 out of 1,000, or 23.5% — named Fox News as the most trustworthy, compared to 10.4% who answered CNN and 6.8% who said MSNBC. Roughly one-in-five answered “none of them.”
Fox News was also the most popular answer given by respondents asked to name the source they trust the least, however. About four in 10 people — 39.4% — named Fox News as the least trustworthy TV network, compared to 21.1% who answered CNN and 5.9% who said MSNBC. Nearly 13% of the 1,000 people answered “all of them.”
The polling was conducted via telephone between Aug. 20-25 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Respondents were asked to consider nine outlets while answering, including the three major cable news networks in addition to ABC, NBC, CBS, C-SPAN, Comedy Central and PBS/NPR.
Fox News spokespeople did not immediately return messages requesting comment.
Often praised by President Trump, Fox News found itself in his crosshairs Wednesday during an online diatribe in which he ridiculed the network as “hopeless” and “clueless.”
“We have to start looking for a new News Outlet,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “Fox isn’t working for us anymore!”
Similar polling conducted by Suffolk in June found that 26.6% of respondents ranked Fox News as the TV source they trust the most, effectively besting the outlet’s network and cable competitors. That survey did not ask respondents to name the source they trust the least.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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