THE ONWARD march of Fox News has been boosted by a poll suggesting it is the most trusted news service in the country.
Almost half of all Americans surveyed in the poll of 1,151 registered voters said they trusted Fox News, the relentlessly right-wing channel that has revolutionised American television news by making it overtly partisan. That is a notably larger vote of confidence than the 39 per cent who said they trusted Fox’s great rival CNN, and vastly more than the credibility ratings of the traditional news networks ABC News (31 per cent), CBS News (32 per cent) and NBC News (35 per cent).
The poll findings are vindication of the commercial strategy of Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and is the brainchild of his controversial henchman Roger Ailes. Fox News threw out the old model of television news – pitched towards a mass audience across the political spectrum and aspiring to standards of fairness in reporting – and replaced it with an aggressive drive for a niche audience of right-wing voters.
The motto of the network is “Fair Balanced”, but in many respects it is anything but. “Fox News is not really a news network, it’s a commentary network. Its news output is a small island in a vast sea of very conservative commentary,” said Mike Hoyt, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review whose March issue features a cover story exploring the Fox News phenomenon. – (Guardian service)