Where News Audiences Fit on the Political Spectrum
Where do Americans get their news about politics and government? And how does the media environment intersect with political polarization? A Pew Research Center study based on a representative online survey finds striking differences in news habits along the ideological spectrum.
Explore the data:
Consumers of Distrust
Audience compared to all Web respondents
Source: American Trends Panel (wave 1). Survey conducted March 19-April 29, 2014. Based on all Web respondents (representative of the 89% of Americans with internet access). Each graphic shows the ideological distribution of all respondents who got news about government and politics from the source over the course of a week. Sizes of each graphic reflect the relative sizes of their audiences, which can also be seen in the reference graphic on the top right of the page. (Overall N=2,901; sample sizes for consumers of each source available upon request.) Ideological consistency based on a scale of 10 political values questions.
Updated 10/21/14: Graphic updated to align visual representation of five segments of ideological spectrum with underlying data. All data labels and percentages are unchanged.
The study attempted to measure not just whether people had heard of a variety of news sources, but which ones they really trusted when it came time to get straight info about politics and governments. There is not a single news source distrusted by at least half of all panelists or those with mixed or mostly conservative views. Six sources are distrusted by 50% or more of consistent conservatives and four are distrusted by most consistent liberals. It's worth keeping in mind when reading the table that the 'distrust' numbers may be low for some less well known outlets mainly because most respondents have never heard of them, rather than because most respondents do not trust them.
Distrust of News Sources
% of respondents saying they distrust each source
| Source | Overall | Consistently liberal | Mostly liberal | Mixed | Mostly conservative | Consistently conservative |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rush Limbaugh Show | 39% | 75% | 47% | 33% | 21% | 7% |
| Fox News | 37% | 81% | 54% | 28% | 11% | 3% |
| Glenn Beck Program | 24% | 59% | 30% | 16% | 13% | 4% |
| MSNBC | 22% | 9% | 9% | 15% | 40% | 75% |
| Sean Hannity Show | 21% | 54% | 26% | 13% | 7% | 5% |
| CNN | 20% | 12% | 11% | 14% | 33% | 61% |
| NBC News | 19% | 6% | 7% | 15% | 35% | 62% |
| Daily Show | 18% | 4% | 11% | 18% | 31% | 34% |
| ABC News | 17% | 6% | 8% | 14% | 27% | 52% |
| CBS News | 17% | 6% | 9% | 11% | 32% | 51% |
| Huffington Post | 17% | 10% | 12% | 13% | 26% | 44% |
| New York Times | 17% | 3% | 6% | 13% | 33% | 50% |
| Al Jazeera America | 16% | 8% | 8% | 11% | 25% | 47% |
| Colbert Report | 16% | 6% | 11% | 15% | 25% | 30% |
| Yahoo News | 16% | 9% | 15% | 20% | 15% | 19% |
| Washington Post | 14% | 6% | 6% | 10% | 26% | 39% |
| USA TODAY | 13% | 11% | 10% | 8% | 18% | 30% |
| PBS | 12% | 2% | 5% | 12% | 20% | 34% |
| Google News | 11% | 4% | 8% | 16% | 10% | 12% |
| New Yorker | 10% | 4% | 8% | 7% | 17% | 27% |
| Wall Street Journal | 10% | 14% | 6% | 9% | 11% | 17% |
| Drudge Report | 9% | 27% | 8% | 5% | 3% | 3% |
| NPR | 9% | 1% | 2% | 5% | 17% | 39% |
| Bloomberg | 8% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 12% | 20% |
| BuzzFeed | 8% | 11% | 8% | 8% | 7% | 6% |
| BBC | 7% | 2% | 3% | 9% | 11% | 17% |
| Mother Jones* | 5% | 3% | 2% | 3% | 6% | 19% |
| Politico | 5% | 4% | 1% | 3% | 10% | 20% |
| Ed Schultz Show* | 5% | 4% | 3% | 2% | 10% | 19% |
| Breitbart | 4% | 16% | 3% | 1% | 0% | 1% |
| Guardian | 4% | 7% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 4% |
| TheBlaze | 3% | 6% | 2% | 1% | 4% | 1% |
| Daily Kos* | 3% | 3% | 2% | 2% | 5% | 10% |
| Slate | 3% | 4% | 1% | 2% | 4% | 8% |
| Economist | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 3% |
| ThinkProgress* | 2% | 2% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 6% |
Source: American Trends Panel (wave 1). Survey conducted March 19-April 29, 2014. Based on all Web respondents (representative of the 89% of Americans with internet access). (Overall N=2,901; see About the Study for sample sizes of each ideological group.) Respondents were asked which (of 36 sources for news about government and politics) they have heard of, trust, distrust and got news from in the past week. Ideological consistency based on a scale of 10 political values questions. To see audience profiles, click each source. *Note that ThinkProgress, Daily Kos, Mother Jones and The Ed Schultz Show do not have audience profiles because the sample sizes for these audiences are too small to analyze.
