• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Independent Voter News
  • Campaign Finance
  • Civic Ed
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Events
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Big Picture>
  3. big picture>

Not news to many: Our polarized view of media brands is only intensifying

Our Staff
October 10, 2019
Not news to many: Our polarized view of media brands is only intensifying
NoDerog/Getty Images

Nike has Colin Kaepernick. Smith & Wesson has guns. Trump Hotels has, well, President Trump.

Not surprisingly, each of these companies is among the most politically polarizing brands of the moment. But the best way to make such a list, it turns out, is to be in the news business.

Of the 15 most polarizing brands of 2019, the dozen not mentioned above are from a single industry — the mainstream media — according to a recent survey by Morning Consult, a brand development and news company. The rankings were determined by measuring the difference in favorability of more than 3,700 brands among self-identified Republicans and Democrats.


If a healthy democracy hinges on the electorate's ability to debate policy from a shared set of facts, the most recent survey suggests a troubling reality, as the news bubbles that have increasingly segregated Americans along ideological lines is only getting worse.

Some of the findings aren't at all surprising: Republicans are by far the biggest fans of Fox, Fox News, Fox Business and Fox Nation — the only news brands that hold a positive net favorability score among surveyed Republicans — while Democrats have favorable views of the other eight news outlets: The New York Times and The Washington Post, plus the three major broadcast networks and the three big cable news channels without a "fox" in the name.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Morning Consult conducted the same survey last year with much the same result: 12 of the top 15 polarizing brands were news outlets. The big difference in the intervening time is that the polarization of media brands has only gotten more emphatic.

Compared to 2018, Democrats had less positive views of the news outlets favored by Republicans, such as Fox News and Fox Business, while Republicans held far more negative opinions of the major news organizations preferred by Democrats.

Trust in the media as a whole also appears to be largely partisan, as a Gallup Poll released last month found that 69 percent of Democrats but only 15 percent of Republicans had a "great deal" or "fair amount" of trust in news organizations.

The Gallup Poll was backed by a separate Morning Consult report in April that found trust in national news organizations had steadily declined since 2016, a phenomenon "largely driven by Republicans."

From Your Site Articles
  • Polarization and the politics of love - The Fulcrum ›
  • Political polarization is about feelings, not facts - The Fulcrum ›
  • Here's the first step to reviving the political center - The Fulcrum ›
  • Is Media the Problem? - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Political Polarization | Pew Research Center ›
  • Extreme political polarization weakens democracy – can the US ... ›
big picture

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow

Support Democracy Journalism; Join The Fulcrum

The Fulcrum daily platform is where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk, and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives. Now more than ever our democracy needs a trustworthy outlet

Contribute
Contributors

The conservative mind at 70

Michael Lucchese

Fulcrum Rewind: How to get along at Thanksgiving

Debilyn Molineaux
David L. Nevins

How reforming felony murder laws can reduce juvenile justice harms

Margaret Mikulski

What if neither party can govern?

John Opdycke

The case for the 4th, from a part-time American

Flora Roy

How to critique a Schedule F revival

C.Anne Long
latest News

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
17h

Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Ashley Houghton
Deb Otis
17h

Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Kevin R. Kosar
17h

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

David Levine
Louis Savoia
28 November

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Jay Evense
28 November

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Our Staff
28 November
Videos
Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Who is the new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson?

Our Staff
Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Video: Jordan bully tactics backfire, provoke threats and harassment of fellow Republicans

Our Staff
Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Video Rewind: Reflection on Indigenous Peoples' Day with Rev. F. Willis Johnson

Our Staff
Video: The power of young voices

Video: The power of young voices

Our Staff
Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Video: Expert baffled by Trump contradicting legal team

Our Staff
Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Video: Do white leaders hinder black aspirations?

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Lennon Wesley III
17h

Podcast: Dr. F. Willis Johnson in a rich conversation with Patrick McNeal

Our Staff
14 November

Podcast: Better choices, better elections

Our Staff
23 October

Podcast: Are state legislators really accountable to their voters?

Our Staff
06 October
Recommended
Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Podcast: Dr. F Willis Johnson in rich conversation with Steve Lawler

Podcasts
Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Ranked choice voting won election day 2023

Big Picture
Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Could George Santos torch the House by vacating the Speaker

Big Picture
Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Slovakia’s election deep fakes show how AI could be a danger to U.S. elections

Contributors
How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

How to change the world: Sam Daley-Harris has a formula

Big Picture
Podcast: America’s political orphans

Podcast: America’s political orphans

Big Picture