Cable news takes a hit

From a year ago:

In June '04, five months before the election, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz reported Pew Research Center findings that (perhaps surprisingly) it is Republicans who have come to distrust the media in greater numbers since President Bush took office, while Democratic views are mostly unchanged. "CNN's once-dominant credibility ratings have slumped in recent years, mostly among Republicans and independents," the survey says. "By comparison, the Fox News Channel's believability ratings have held steady -- both overall and within partisan groups." While the percentage of people who rate CNN as highly credible had slid from 42 percent six years previously to 32 percent, the study says, it was still true that more "say they can believe all or most of what they hear on CNN than say that about Fox News Channel," whose credibility rating is 25 percent. (MSNBC clocks in at 22 percent.) Just edging out CNN in the trustworthiness stakes was "60 Minutes", which clocked 33 percent.

In a finding that apparently surprised Andrew Kohut, the Pew center's director, 29 percent of Republicans say Fox News Channel is credible, only slightly more than the 26 percent of GOPers who feel that way about CNN. Among Democrats, though, 45 percent give CNN a thumbs up for credibility, compared with 24 percent for Fox News Channel. The changing views "reflect the political polarization we've seen," says Andrew Kohut, the Pew center's director. "It reflects anger on the part of Republicans about the way the media's treated Bush lately, and also reflects the appeal of Fox News." Readers and viewers, he says, are "reacting to a perception of a political point of view, whether that means bias in political reports or tone." (From Benton's Communications-related Headlines)