Thursday, February 28, 2013

Most voters still get their news from television and consider the news reported by the media generally trustworthy.

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Likely U.S. Voters say they get most of their news from TV, including 32% who get it from cable news networks and 24% who get it from traditional network news. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that another 25% use the Internet as their main source of news, while only 10% still rely on print newspapers. Seven percent (7%) get most of their news from radio. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Fifty-six percent (56%) of all voters regard the news reported by the media as at least somewhat trustworthy, but that includes just six percent who think it is Very Trustworthy. Forty-two percent (42%) don’t trust the news media, with 12% who believe the news it reports is Not At All Trustworthy.  

Last September, as the final stretch of the presidential race heated up, 40% of American Adults said the Internet was the best way to get news and information in today’s world, while 37% viewed television that way. Nine percent (9%) rated radio as the best source, and seven percent (7%) chose print newspapers. TV broadcast news was considered the most reliable, followed by the Internet and newspapers.  

Forty-one percent (41%) of voters think the average media reporter is more liberal than they are, down slightly from 46% in June 2011. Unchanged from the earlier survey are the 18% who feel the average reporter is more conservative than they are, while 26% think their views are about the same. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.  

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 26-27, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

REST OF IT