Is Fox News mainstream media? New poll provides interesting answer
Republican presidential candidates (L-R), former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum participate in the first debate of the GOP primary season hosted by FOX News at the Fiserv Forum on August 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Win McNamee/)
Fox News might be the network where the biggest group of Americans say they get their news, but those same people are much more likely than most other Americans to say that their favorite news source isn't part of the "mainstream media," according to a poll that was released last week.
It might sound contradictory that viewers of the most-watched network are more likely to say it's not mainstream media, but that's the case, according to the poll , published Friday by the Pew Research Center.
Between Sept. 16 and Sept. 22, Pew asked nearly 10,000 adults where they most often got their political news. Of the 8,000 unique responses, 13% said Fox, followed by CNN at 10%. Fox's share had remained stable compared with a similar poll conducted in 2021, while CNN's had dropped by four percentage points.
They were followed by local TV at 6%, ABC at 5%, then NBC, NPR, MSNBC and CBS at 3%. The New York Times was the only newspaper getting more than 1% percent, with 3% of respondents saying it was their go-to for political news.
As a sign of the balkanizing media landscape, 32% of respondents named a main political news source that wasn't among the top 10.
Another question in the survey gave a hint of the kind of programming viewers see on Fox.
When asked whether their favored news source is part of the mainstream media, just 61% of those who prefer Fox said it was. That compares to 96% for the New York Times, 88% for NBC and MSNBC, 85% for ABC, 84% for CNN, and 82% for CBS.
NPR listeners were more likely to see themselves as a breed apart, with 69% who prefer it saying it was part of the mainstream media.
Another result might indicate that some people might define "mainstream media" as something other than news organizations that adhere to a common set of standards. Of the group saying that local TV was their go-to, just 57% said their sources were part of the MSM.
The survey also confirmed that the Fox audience skews older than its counterparts.
"Older adults are much more likely than younger adults to name Fox News: 22% of those ages 65 and older say this is their main source for this news, compared with just 5% of adults under 30," it said.
The survey also asked what medium people used to get their news. Thirty five percent said TV, 21% percent said from news websites and 20% said from social media.
Perhaps predictably, respondents 65 and older were a lot more likely to get their news from TV, 63%, than those aged 18 to 29, 10%. Nearly half of the latter group said they primarily get their news from social media.
