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The Briefing In 1994, 35% of consumers had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in TV news In 2020, only 18% feel the same way Unsurprisingly, younger Americans are more skeptical than older Americans Trust in TV News has Dropped Among U.S. Consumers Americans are increasingly losing their trust in traditional institutions, particularly when it comes to TV news. In 2020, a whopping 49% of U.S. consumers claim to have very little or no trust in TV news, compared to just 27% in 1994: ***** snip ***** What’s causing this loss of trust? A recent report by...

President Donald Trump began his Monday morning by posting a tweet thanking his favorite TV show, Fox & Friends, for a “great show this morning.” Four minutes later, the president posted another tweet congratulating a lesser-known right-wing news network — One America News Network. “Also, congratulations to @OANN on the great job you are doing and the big ratings jump (“thank you President Trump”)!” he wrote. (It’s unclear what evidence, if any, Trump has that OANN has experienced a “big ratings jump.”) OANN’s platform is nowhere near as large as Fox News — the network is available via DirecTV and...

After years of misleading its audience with fake news, 35 percent of CNN’s primetime audience up and left ...While Fox News is growing, the openly left-wing MSNBC is also shrinking, but nowhere nearly as much as CNN. Fox grabbed an astonishing average of 2.4 million viewers. CNN could not even hold a million total primetime viewers and bottomed out with an average of just 937,000. MSNBC cleared a little over 1.7 million. In total day viewers, Fox News was number one in all of cable, with an average hold of 1.5 million viewers.

Donald Trump is meeting with his harshest critics Monday and the people who arguably got him elected ... the media. Sources in Trump's camp tell us ... he's meeting with all the network heads Monday at 1 PM ET, and Trump will not hold back. We're told he wants to talk to them about how they got it so wrong during the campaign. TV execs will show up today, and Tuesday he'll do the same with the NY Times execs and others. Trump's end game for the meeting is unclear, but we're told crow will be served.

Pittsburgh news anchor fired after racist Facebook post says it was because she is white A Pittsburgh news anchor fired for a Facebook post stereotyping black people as criminals is suing, saying she was let go because she is white. Wendy Bell, then a presenter at WTAE, caused a social-media firestorm with a March post, where she wrote that still-unidentified shooting suspects were probably black. “You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday ... They are young black men, likely in their teens or in...

Al Jazeera America will fade to black on Tuesday night not even three years after it launched. But its CEO, Al Anstey, feels the news channel achieved something special. "We are signing off but, somewhat counterintuitively, I believe we succeeded," Anstey said. "People believe passionately in what we did." The channel prioritized sober, serious journalism. The way it was marketed -- as "fact-based, in-depth news" that gives "voice to the voiceless" -- implicitly criticized competitors for devoting too much time to opinion and official sources. Earlier this year, the channel's owner, Qatar, decided it could no longer bankroll Al Jazeera...

(NYTIMES) — With shorter stories and scarce coverage of politics and government, local television newscasts in the United States, like local newspapers before them, are suffering from “shrinking pains,” according to the Pew Research Center. The diagnosis comes in the center’s 10th annual State of the News Media report, which will be published on Monday. The report, covering 2012, describes cutbacks in the reporting ranks of newspapers and television networks and a surge in efforts by politicians, corporations and others to tell their own stories. “This adds up to a news industry that is more undermanned and unprepared to uncover...

At Big Journalism, William Bigelow writes, “According to a new Gallup poll measuring Americans’ confidence in television news, the level is the lowest since the poll was begun in 1993:” 21% of adults expressed a great deal of confidence in television news reporting. No wonder CNN’s ratings are in the toilet. Gallup tested 16 institutions, including newspapers, and TV news ranked 11th. Newspapers were ranked 10th. There was an interesting divide among those on the left; Democrats were the most confident in television news of all the groups surveyed (now there’s a shock) but postgraduates, who are more generally Democrats,...

The Internet has risen to its all-time high as a primary source of news for Americans with 43 percent now saying they get most of their news on national and international issues from the web, according to a survey published Thursday by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press. Meanwhile, television sits at an all-time low as a primary source of news for Americans with only 66 percent now saying they get most of their national and international news from TV--a nadir television also hit in December 2010. Since 1991, Pew has periodically asked Americans: “How do...

Jim Walker, a veteran local television anchor with more than 25 years of experience on air, was cut loose at the beginning of August after just a year at WBBH, the NBC affiliate for Fort Myers. And just like his former colleague Craig Wolf, who was fired from the station in March, Walker is not going quietly. Walker took to his Facebook page to express his distaste with the station’s decision, noting that he would not disclose the details of his confidential separation agreement. According to The Fort Myers News-Press, Walker wrote that the broadcasts he helms — 6 p.m.,...

PPP's annual look at the public's trust in various TV news outlets finds that Fox News' credibility is on the decline, that the traditional networks are seeing an up tick in their numbers, and that PBS is at the top of the heap. Here's how they stack up from highest net trust to worst: Outlet Trust/Distrust Net 2010 Numbers Shift from 2010 PBS 50/30 +20 Not Included Not Applicable NBC 41/41 0 35/44 (-9) +9 CNN 40/43 -3 39/41 (-2) -1 Fox News 42/46 -4 49/37 (+12) -16 CBS 36/43 -7 32/46 (-14) +7 ABC 35/43 -8 31/46 (-15)...

Canada ready for conservative TV network - broadcaster Published Saturday June 12th, 2010 A10 By STEPHANIE LEVITZ The Canadian Press OTTAWA - It's the right time for a right-of-centre television network in Canada, says one of the country's leading conservative broadcasters. But if that's what Quebecor Media Inc. is doing with their proposed new channel, it can't be styled as a "Fox News North," said Dave Rutherford, whose Alberta-based political talk show has been a mainstay of Canadian conservatism for two decades. "It's obviously got to be a stand-alone, Canadian-looking conservative channel," Rutherford said. Quebecor filed an application late last...

Your humble correspondent is not exactly going out on a limb here by claiming he has better yo-yo skills than self-proclaimed "champion" K-Strass aka Ken Strasser. After a pair of real yo-yo champions from the Phillipines put on a performance for our third grade class in Puerto Rico, I was inspired to learn a series of basic yo-yo tricks such as "walk the dog," "around the world," and "rock the cradle." If you don't believe that I am more skilled than "champion" Strasser, then I invite you to watch this very painful video of K-Strass in action on one of...

In the first full day of the Van Jones resignation watch, the White House was mostly quiet on the status of the Green Jobs Czar. The only think they said was the president does believe with the truther nuts. When asked on Friday whether President Barack Obama still had confidence in him, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said only that Jones "continues to work in the administration." Gibbs then referred to Jones' own statement. Jones flatly said in his statement that he did not agree with the petition's stand and that "it certainly does not reflect my views, now...

The Big 3 networks' evening newscasts probably turned in their worst ratings week since TVs became a household staple during the week of May 18. Last week (at NewsBusters), based on the ratings for the week of May 11, I noted that the shows' combined audience had plunged a stunning 25% from their late January post-inauguration peak to a level barely above the 20 million mark. At the time, I thought that we wouldn't see a sub-20 million week until sometine during the summer. Well, it's not summer yet, and they're below a combined 20 million already. What's more,...

Just before 5 p.m. this past Sunday, a Chevy Monte Carlo rolled up before a squat, one-story house in Liberty City. Someone inside the car pulled out an AK-47 and opened fire on a group of young men in the front yard, wounding five... But the prosecutor working on the January case -- a veteran of the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office -- says he believes the latest attack was spurred by a news story by reporter Jim DeFede that aired Thursday on CBS4. Based on a description by an anonymous source, it clearly showed the family's address and criticized witnesses...

I could of course be commenting on the poor quality of the alleged journalism. But in this case I'm talking about their ratings, which is of course largely caused by said poor journalism. Three weeks ago (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that the Big 3 networks' evening newscasts' combined ratings had dropped about 17% since the collective high they achieved during the week of January 26, the first full week after Barack Obama's nomination. Make that 21%. In the 25-54 demographic, the drop has been 30%. And it's not just a seasonality thing. The collective drop compared to...

MSNBC will soon add another liberal radio host, the latest in a series of changes intended to position the network as a venue for left-leaning voices in the evening. Ed Schultz, a radio veteran with a blue-state appeal, will anchor the 6 p.m. hour, to be called “The Ed Show,” starting Monday, MSNBC, a unit of NBC Universal, announced Wednesday night. Last year, the network hired Rachel Maddow, an opinionated Air America radio host, to anchor the 9 p.m. hour, immediately increasing ratings in the time slot. Mr. Schultz said his show would take a “hard-hitting approach to issues,” with...

As layoffs and early retirements alter Boston's television newsrooms, the traditional anchorman is becoming a minority and newscasts are getting female makeovers. Men have been leaving their anchor jobs because of budget cuts forced by the recession and changes in direction at the stations, and women are being elevated to more prominent roles. At WHDH-TV (Channel 7) the marquee anchor duo is Frances Rivera and Kim Khazei. At Univision Boston, an all-female team anchors and reports the news. At NECN, women anchor all weekend newscasts. Women have replaced male anchors on other stations' newscasts, as well.

Just by reading this online story, you are part of a groundbreaking trend. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released last week, the Internet has passed newspapers as the most popular source for news. Only television surpassed the Net, with about 70 percent of Americans saying they get most of their national and international news from the ubiquitous box. About 40 percent say they get most of their news from the Net, an increase of 16 percent from September 2007. Newspapers are the main source for about 35 percent. This...