A new poll taken by Huffpost/YouGov reports that of all six cable and broadcast news outlets, CNN ranked at the top of networks considered the least believable during the almost non-stop coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the intense 5-day manhunt that followed. Fox News, on the other hand, was ranked as most believable.
When asked how believable the news was on CNN during coverage of the Boston bombings, only 38% said it was “very” or “somewhat believable.” MSNBC fared even worse at 35%. Fox News, however, beat all five of its cable and broadcast competitors with a 50% ranking. CBS came in second with 48%, NBC and ABC respectively earned 46% and 45%.
In the categories of “not very” or “not at all” believable,” CNN was at the very bottom by a pretty large margin. While the other five networks were all huddled between 13% and 16%, CNN was all by itself at 21%.
There is just no question that this is devastating news for CNN. While the network’s ratings shot up during their coverage of the bombings, they were still trounced by Fox News, something that was once unheard of during major breaking news events. On top of that, thanks to countless flubs both huge and small, CNN is now something of a punchline in the rest of the media.
Compounding CNN’s problems is that, for a wide swath of the country that isn’t liberal, Piers Morgan’s left-wing demagoguery has become the face of a network right-of-center viewers already believed was against them. This belief was confirmed in writing during the recent gun control debate, when Breitbart News reported on a press release proving CNN was using its network as a propaganda machine to openly lobby Congress to pass stricter gun control laws.
MSNBC’s ranking in this poll isn’t at all surprising. During the bombing coverage, the Lean Forward network was humiliated in the ratings — a natural consequence when you choose to stop being a news network and instead choose to become left-wing talk radio with pictures and smug hosts.
This poll also confirms something Big Journalism has argued for over a week now: that the Fox News Channel is now the “Most Trusted Name In News.” First, the ratings backed this up, and now we have a poll as confirmation.
Fox’s ratings and credibility triumph has got to be demoralizing news for a mainstream media that for years now has worked itself into a lather trying to destroy the one television news outlet that refuses to join their Ideological Collective. But it is just a fact that, by any measurement, Fox News’s week-long coverage of the Boston bombings was outstanding…
And the only people who matter — the customers — obviously agree.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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