Fox News Hits Three Year Perception Low With Republicans

YouGov BrandIndex ^ | 2/24/16 | Ted Marzilli

[M. Thatcher]

Since the first GOP presidential debate last August, Fox News Channel seems to have lost its perception mojo with its core right-leaning audience.

By mid February, FNC’s perception by Republican adults 18 and over had reached its lowest point in more than three years, and has declined by approximately 50% since January of this year.

Coinciding with Trump’s rise to front-runner in the GOP presidential race, Fox News Channel has seen its perception by Republicans slide. In early August 2015, right after the first GOP debate aired on Fox News Channel,Trump went on a Twitter war with moderator Megyn Kelly, saying she “bombed” and calling her “a lightweight reporter.”

The picture hasn’t been rosy in terms of the general population either: since last May, Fox News Channel’s perception levels with adults 18+ have uncharacteristically been drawing significantly more negative feedback than positive. At this point, both FNC and CNN are scoring at similar perception levels and they are both negative.

To measure perception of the two networks, YouGov BrandIndex used its Buzz score, which asks respondents: "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?" A score can range from 100 to -100 with a zero score equaling a neutral position.

On January 1, 2013, Fox News Channel’s Buzz score with Republican adults 18 and over was 49. By the first GOP debate last August, the score had dropped to 38. The downward momentum accelerated earlier this year when Fox News Channel’s score dropped from 36 on January 18th to 14 on February 12th. Trump declined to participate in FNC’s sanctioned GOP debate on January 28th. Fox News Channel’s current Buzz score is 17.

[ez]

In typical fashion, I’m sure FOX blames Trump instead of blaming themselves.

[bert]

you are requesting a foot note to a foot note

[McGruff]

Our FNC boycott must be working. Keep it up people.

[ez]

The problem with Megyn Kelly is not that she read Trumps words back to him. The problem is that instead of asking a question about immigration policy, or gun policy, or health insurance policy or any policy at all, she chose to ask him why he called Rosie a fat pig...essentially accusing him of misogyny right there on the stage. The man is running for President, not captain of the all America role model team. Kelly injected her slanted feminist-tainted views into a debate about running the country and it while it might be an act of journalism, it was an act of prejudicial yellow journalism.

[Aleya2Fairlie]

This is what happens to those who don’t “dance with who brung ‘em.” I haven’t watched them for a long time. I didn’t care for Megyn Kelly or her arrogance long before the debates. Fox was once my one and only. Now they’re just another branch of the MSM. They’re even worse because they claim to be otherwise. I think the plan was for Megyn to step into O’Reilly’s shoes. I sincerely hope that her “pride” does indeed go before her “fall” along with FOX.

[slipper]

Never thought I’d say this, since I used to watch Fox every night, but I prefer to watch MSNBC now.

Fox is banned in my home, and as soon as my cable contract is up this summer, I will be downgrading and will cut Fox out.

[Qiviut]

Kelly has Beck on .... that alone is enough to keep me from watching. Actually, I haven’t watched her since the first debate when she was determined to “make her bones” on the corpse of DJT. THAT is not ‘journalism’, ‘fair, balanced & unafraid’, or ‘we report, you decide’, etc. The debates are not debates, but a 3-ring circus as is most of the media “reporting” these days & FOX has definitely joined the circus - if they could find a bearded lady to join the FOX ‘babes’, they’d really be in high clover. /sarc

[slipper]

The only reason MEagain has Beck on her program is to trash Trump. He plays her game.

[nathanbedford]

The Democrat party ran the election of 2010, 2012 and 2014 campaigning against the alleged Republicans war on women. The debate platform was lined with men and one woman seeking to run a Republican campaign which was bound to be criticized for waging war against women. Nothing could be more newsworthy, more relevant or more pertinent to the election chances of the Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular then a question to establish his liability or immunity from the charge that he was a misogynist.

This is a matter not only of interest to Donald Trump and to Donald Trump supporters but to Republicans who want to see a Republican elected president of the United States. The worst thing that could happen to us is to nominate a man with a skeleton in his closet that causes him to lose the election.

Megan Kelly's line of questioning was fair and it was nothing more than quoting Trump's own words back to him. Indeed, nothing could be more fair.

[Aleya2Fairlie]

“I long for a media outlet with fair and objective investigative journalists who report the facts and let the viewers decide. There are no real investigative journalists anymore. Journalists are reigned in by the few owners of big media who are seeking to promote their own agenda. Media is big business seeking money from sponsors and they will do whatever it takes for the almighty buck. Sad state of affairs. American media is no better today than Communist China media in my opinion. I also agree with your statement about Communist China. The truth is mighty hard to come by these days.

Well and truthfully stated. It used to be a requirement of a bona fide journalist or reporter to be absolutely and as much as possible, objective and able to report without embellishing. You are correct; there are none left.

[Qiviut]

Exactly.

[ConservativeMind]

That's a humorous way to put that, but perhaps that it what it would be.

All I am saying is, if a large group of your customers agrees with your stated intent (”Fair and Balanced”) and they are now calling out MSNBC and CNN as showing less overt bias against candidates in situations such as the actual debates as noted within posts on this thread), there's an obvious loss of being “Fair and Balanced.”

Fox could find multiple ways to address this.

Fox could:

1. Curb their slant against a person or thought
2. Provide equal slant against other persons or thoughts
3. Stop providing any slant
4. Shift to providing simple news stories, rotating between anti-conservative, anti-liberal, pro-conservative, pro-liberal approaches
5. Throw away the slogan/mission statement, “Fair and Balanced,” and just put out anything they want. No one could claim they weren't holding to their word, any longer. Notice how conservatives don't bother to hold MSNBC to being “Fair and Balanced?” It's because that network has never claimed to be “Fair and Balanced.”

OANN and C-Span are two non-offensive networks. OANN has a decidedly soft, but strong, conservative approach to all I have seen. C-Span does a remarkable job of covering all sides evenly.

So, I guess it appears only C-Span is truly “Fair and Balanced.”

[moovova]

“Fox could clear that up by cleaning some house...”

Don’t forget Juan and Geraldo.

[Stentor]

I think the plan was for Megyn to step into O’Reilly’s shoes.

Late Empire woman takes the place of Mid Empire man in a Post Empire world. O'Reilly lives in the 70s and pines for the clarity of the 50s.

[bert]

just for the record, do you ever watch Cavuto?

Cavuto is on Fox News every day at 4:00. His show is frequently unbalanced because the left winger refuses the invitation to rebut the more conservative view presented.

Cavuto presents the best interviews on the network.

If 4:00 is not possible, record the show and watch it later

[Caipirabob]

“Trump supporters scream that Megan Kelly is off the reservation because she commits an act of journalism on Donald Trump by quoting his own words back at him”

I have to take exception to that statement. During the debate, had the exact same words come from one of the candidates, Donald Trump might not have made it this far in the election. What Kelly did, rather than being a professional and impartial moderator, was create a martyr out of Trump. She gave a powerful reason for people to rally around Trump and listen to what she was saying. They may be single handedly responsible for giving him the initial boost in his poll numbers.

Again if it had come from Jeb or foam-boy scRubio, Trump would not have had as much credibility in his response as those opponents were supposed to be attacking him, not the moderator. Kelly is a villain no matter how we look at it in this scenario. She had one job, and she blew it in front of tens of millions of Americans.

I’m not overly pleased with how things turned out, I expected more from Ted Cruz on strategy and dealing with the Teflon Don. However these are the cards we were dealt and I think any of the top 3 candidates will be better than Hillary or that “thing we call president” we have right now.

Anyway, love your posts, have a great weekend.

[nathanbedford]

In post #18 I said:

But overall the problem is we don't want a fair and balanced news organization, we want a committed conservative propaganda machine. (Emphasis supplied)

Thereafter I said I was "distressed" by Fox featuring Trump so often, a reasonable inference being that I did not believe that Fox is "fair and balanced."

In reply #67, to which you are now replying, I said:

In reaching the conclusions that many FReepers don't want "fair and balanced" (emphasis supplied)

It is clear that I was not asserting as a fact that every FReeper did not want a fair and balanced channel but that many did not and indeed I was in the class that thought that Fox in some instances was unbalanced if not unfair.

In any event in every instance I was expressing my opinion. I am curious what English dictionary you consult to conclude that an opinion with which you don't agree is "lying?"

Do you really think people are persuaded when they read accusations of somebody lying because you don't agree with their opinion?

[nathanbedford]

Please see my post #89

Thank you for the kind words.

[Gerish]

Americans overwhelmingly rejected a Bush candidacy this time around, therefore to have FOX shove Karl Rove and his goofy opinions down our throats is very annoying and insulting. He needs to go! Also, Shep is awful. Meg Kelly has shown her true colors since the first debate, so she has only her ego and pride to blame when people tune her out.

[AndyJackson]

Oh give it up. The problem is that you Crewzoids display your own biases when you try to defend Megyn. She strapped on her gladiator suit, and made a straight lashing and slashing run at Trump thinking she was going to be the hero who delivered the knock out blow and become the darling of GOPe. The result was Trump unscathed and everyone else with blood pouring out of wherever.