“A new poll from Pew Research breaks down conservatism and leftism in the media – and comes up with a number of interesting results. As it turns out, leftists are far less tolerant that conservatives and implicitly trust government sources,” Ben Shapiro writes at Big Journalism:
Fox News Has a More Balanced Audience Than MSNBC. The poll shows that 55 percent of those who watch Fox News are either mixed in political viewpoint or leftist; 52 percent of those who watch MSNBC are either mixed or conservative. The most balanced outlet: The Wall Street Journal, although surprisingly, those who are consistently conservative read the paper the least of all ideological groups (13 percent of the audience is consistently conservative).
Leftists Think Humor Is News. Leftists trust The Colbert Report and The Daily Show as news. We knew this already from polls of young people who cite these shows as some of their top news sources, but it underscores the point that leftists simply do not take politics seriously – they’re happy to take their cues from people who began their careers making fart jokes. It is worth noting that the audience for The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and The Huffington Post are virtually identical in ideological composition. The Daily Show’s audience does not exist on the political right, with just 7 percent of its viewers identified as conservative in any way.
Nobody Trusts BuzzFeed. The least-trusted news source is BuzzFeed. It is not trusted by consistent liberals, mostly liberals, mixed political viewpoints, mostly conservatives, or consistent conservatives. At least consistent conservatives trust The Rush Limbaugh Show and consistent leftists trust The Ed Schultz Show. Nobody trusts BuzzFeed.
And note this Twitter exchange on the poll last night:
In which @TIME unwittingly illustrates why FNC was needed. @derekahunter
— Burrrton (@SeahawkBurrrton) October 21, 2014
The irony is that Time magazine was founded by Henry Luce in the 1920s to appeal to a center-right audience — and did so quite well, until Luce relinquished control of the magazine in the mid-1960s, before passing away in 1967. Three years later, and Time was doing their best Pauline Kael impersonation and trying to figure out who on earth were these strange pro-American Nixon voters who still wanted America to win in Vietnam?
Time magazine is a classic example of former National Review editor John O’Sullivan’s First Law of Politics in action: “Any institution that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time.”
And actually, so is Pew:
Always mildly surprised folks don’t know Pew’s KUHRAZY story about how it went from conservative to progressive: https://t.co/bDZhUGiDAF
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) October 21, 2014
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