Fox News host Sean Hannity's pre-Super Bowl interview with President Trump shows at a Washington, D.C., bar on Feb. 2. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Fox News host Sean Hannity's pre-Super Bowl interview with President Trump shows at a Washington, D.C., bar on February. ii. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Fox News, the influential cable network launched by Rupert Murdoch in 1996, holds a unique place in the American media mural, particularly for those on the ideological right. While Democrats in the United States turn to and place their trust in a multifariousness of media outlets for political news, no other source comes shut to matching the entreatment of Fox News for Republicans.

Below are five facts about Play a joke on News and how Americans feel almost it. All findings are based on recent surveys from Pew Research Center's Election News Pathways projection, which focuses on what Americans hear, perceive and know about the 2020 presidential election and how these attitudes relate to how and where they get news. (You tin utilize this interactive tool to explore the data from these surveys yourself.)

For this roundup of key facts about Trick News and its consumers, nosotros relied on ii surveys from Pew Enquiry Center'south Election News Pathways project. The kickoff survey was conducted Oct. 29-November. eleven, 2019, among 12,043 U.Due south. adults. The second was conducted March 19-24, 2020, among xi,537 U.S. adults.

Everyone who took office in the surveys is a member of the Center'due south American Trends Console, an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. Recruiting our panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that whatever sample tin represent the whole population (run across our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). To farther ensure that each survey reflects a counterbalanced cross section of the nation, the data is weighted to match the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories.

Here are the questions asked in the beginning survey, along with responses, and the methodology. For the second survey, here are the questions and responses and the methodology.

1Around four-in-ten Americans trust Fob News. Near the same share distrust it. Among all U.S. adults, 43% say they trust Play a trick on News for political and election news – similar to the shares who say they trust CBS News (45%) and PBS (42%), co-ordinate to a November 2019 survey. At the same time, 40% of adults say they distrust Fox News – the highest share out of the 30 media outlets asked about in the survey, alee of CNN (32%) and the Rush Limbaugh radio show (29%).

The vast majority of adults (94%) have heard of Fox News. And every bit of last November, 39% said they had gotten political news there in the by week – tied with CNN amid the outlets asked most.

Republicans place trust in one source, Fox News, far more than any other, and rely on Fox News far more for political news 2Republicans trust Play a trick on News more than whatsoever other outlet. Democrats distrust information technology more than whatever other outlet. Around two-thirds of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (65%) say they trust Play a joke on News for political and election news. No more than a third of Republicans say they trust any of the other news organizations asked about in the survey, including network sources such as ABC News (33%), CBS News (30%) and NBC News (30%). Conservative Republicans are especially likely to say they trust Fox News: Three-quarters say this, compared with around half of moderate or liberal Republicans (51%).

As of November, six-in-x Republicans said they had gotten political news from Fox News within the past week. This, also, was far higher than the share of Republicans who said they had recently gotten political news from other sources.

Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 61% say they distrust Trick News for political news. That's considerably college than the shares of Democrats who distrust other outlets, including the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity radio shows (43% and 38%, respectively) and Breitbart News (36%) – though this also reflects the fact that Fox News is more well-known to the public than these other outlets. Liberal Democrats are far more likely than conservative or moderate Democrats to say they distrust Play tricks news (77% vs. 48%).

While most Democrats distrust Fox News, that doesn't mean they universally melody it out. Effectually a quarter of Democrats (23%), including 29% of bourgeois or moderate Democrats and xv% of liberals, said in November that they had gotten political news from Fox News in the past week.

3On an ideological calibration, the average Play tricks News consumer is to the right of the average U.S. adult, only non as far to the right as the audiences of some other outlets . As part of the Nov survey, the Center grouped the audiences of 30 news outlets on a calibration based on the cocky-described ideology and partisanship of those who said they had gotten political news from each outlet in the by calendar week. (You can read more than about this classification system in this Q&A.) Based on this calibration, the average audition member for Play a trick on News is more than probable than the average U.S. adult to be bourgeois and Republican. Just the average audiences for 4 other outlets in the report – the Daily Caller, Breitbart News, and the Sean Hannity and Blitz Limbaugh radio shows – are to the right of the boilerplate Fox News viewer.

Average audience placement of each news outlet based on party and ideology

4People who cite Fox News equally their main source of political news are older and more likely to be white than U.Southward. adults overall. Americans ages 65 and older account for around four-in-ten of those who say their main source is Fox News (37%), compared with 21% of all adults, co-ordinate to the November survey. And effectually ix-in-ten who turn to Pull a fast one on News (87%) place their race and ethnicity as non-Hispanic white, compared with 65% of all adults.

Most Fox News regulars say Trump's response to COVID-19 outbreak has been excellent fiveThose who name Play tricks News as their main source of political news stand out in their views on fundamental issues and people, including President Donald Trump. Fox News consumers tend to have an especially positive view of the president, which may not be a surprise given that 93% of those who name the network as their master source of political news place as Republican or lean to the political party.

One hitting example is in perceptions of Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak. In a March 2020 survey, 63% of those whose primary source of political and ballot news is Fox News said Trump is doing an excellent task responding to the outbreak. No more than than a quarter of those who cited other news outlets as their main source of political news said this. Fox News regulars were considerably more likely than Republicans overall to depict Trump'southward handling of the outbreak as first-class (63% vs. 47%).

In the Nov 2019 survey, 71% of those who cited Play tricks News as their chief source of political news gave Trump a very warm rating on a "feeling thermometer" ranging from 0 to 100, where 0 represents the coldest, virtually negative rating and 100 represents the warmest, most positive. Among all U.S. adults, just a quarter gave Trump a very warm rating (between 76 and 100).

Pull a fast one on News viewers also had a notably negative view of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. More eight-in-ten of those who named Fox News every bit their chief source of political news (85%) gave Pelosi a very cold rating on the thermometer – between 0 and 24. That was more double the share of all U.Due south. adults who gave Pelosi a very cold rating (41%).

Note: For facts about Fox News in 2014, see this earlier post by Jesse Holcomb, a sometime acquaintance director of inquiry.