US study of most trusted news sources

Here is the study done by the University of Missouri: https://www.rjionline.org/reporthtml.html It's all worth reading.

Here is the main graph for discussion:

I find it both hilarious and terrifying that Infowars is more trusted than the US President.

Well, considering that regurgitated information is normally less trustworthy than its original source, it makes sense. Which doesn't explaining how Fox got ahead on that trainwreck :P

Not surprised it is a financial (judging by the name) news source at the top.

So there you have it, Americans clearly trust real new organizations much more than our disgusting, lying, fake President, and rightly so.

That is actually better than I expected. Good job, America, there's hope for us yet.

@horgen:

Hello. (Waves.) Longtime subscriber here. The Economist is a British-based news magazine that deals with everything, not just business and finance. Like all British press, they are also unapologetically opinionated, in this case promoting a "free market and free society" line; i.e. they are socially liberal, but economically pro-free market and pro-business. In this sense, they are generally considered editorially centrist to centre-right.

I'd be more confident about the results of a buzzfeed quiz than anything infowars has to say

It's pretty much the same with some news sources in Norway. I assume they are business and finance heavy, right?

What, infowars is not the most trusted?!

@horgen:

Not really. I got the latest issue in my hands right now. The front page advertises articles about the possibility of a US-North Korea nuclear war, as well asking whether sanctions on Russia work, a post-extinction biodiversity boom, China's People's Liberation Army's 90th anniversary, and an opinion piece that you should tax roads instead of fuel. Very varied stuff.

Economics and finance is discussed in many of the articles, but it's far from the only thing they discuss. There are dedicated "Business" and "Finance and Economics" sections, but they're only 5 pages each - the Science and Technology section is 3 pages, and there is a Books and Arts section that's also 5 pages. Again, it's really just your regular weekly news magazine, just with an unapologetically socially liberal, economically pro-free market editorial stance - and a small dose of British snark.

It's good to see that NPR is a top tier source.

@korvus:

Fox News without Hannity really isn't bad. Hannity himself is waaaay down there, but the rest of Fox News sorta evens it out and overall their ranking really isn't terrible.

Breitbart and Trump should really be even lower. lol

This is a fake news article.

lol

Well it does depend on how the study was done. I think Breitbart has given John Oliver on Last Week Tonight an example or two on how to get the result you want depending on the options you provide. Given that this is done by an university I don't really expect bias one way or the other though.

He's trolling.....

How the hell is WSJ that high after the shit they've pulled. Agree with the Economist.

That's exactly what I was going to post.

System wars is more thrustworthy than Trump

"Internet"

That's an interesting choice.

Because most people who read the WSJ don't pay attention to what they pull on youtubers and are in a limited circle of information.

Still this chart is pretty much bullshit and everybody knows it. Fox news and Inforwars should be way closer to the top spot.

Ive never met an informed person who relies on infowars or fox news. And while they are older studies, all evidence says you're better off not watching the news at all and just assuming what is going on in the world than watching Fox News.

Indeed when I talk with Fox News viewers all they promote is talking points.

Says the guy who doesn't know what's going on with NK.

Sure I do. The idiot in chief is poking the bear. That never ends well. When are YOU going to know what's going on with NK?

What would you call the situation when the same thing happened under Obama and he basically said the same thing about potential military intervention?

My bad... you wont even recognize that NK has been doing these things for decades.

You haven't much be paying attention to the news have you? This is not the same as the past. NK has a relatively new leader. Th US has an irrational leader. The FIRST firing of a ICBM was 4 July 2017. That doesn't sound like they've been doing it for years.

Edit: Decades not years. Don't want to misrepresent your mistake.

This

"Data were collected in the February and March 2017 using an online survey"

Says it all, which makes this study unuseable.

No idea why you keep posting this alt-left biased shit

I know. Maybe it would be more credible if Breitbart posted this. :P

This way of conducting a survey woulnt be credible if it came from pope himself.

You can't even spell unusable.

If this was alt-left biased shit Occupy Democrats wouldn't be ranked as literally the worst source of information, and WSJ and Economist wouldn't be so high

Wow you got me there, a "e" too much.

Good catch , still doesn´t make this study any more credible.

funny thing is most those news sources circulate syndicated articles form the AP and Reuters

Why would this make it unusable? Because it was done during that time period, or the fact that it was online? They attempt to outline their methodology with in the beginning, however the two variables you mention hardly call for it to be dismissed.

Look at the other variables mentioned: political orientation, geographic distribution, age range, race, phrasing of questions, quantifying their responses, etc.

If you want to critique the study by all means, go for it. But you've stopped at 'alt-left biased shit'. The study was conducted by the Reynolds Journalism Institute, University of Missouri. I'm unfamiliar with the organization but it appears it wasn't done by a two bit online operation with obvious problems.

You're response was lazy.

Not to defend Jacanuk and i have not checked the polling data or method, but in general poor "real" polling is equivalent to the best internet polling. This is because with proper polling you actually verify information and put it in a proper context and the proper demographics. With the majority of internet polls, that information that would be verified in person, is now simply asked and presumed to be correct without verification. Its also been shown that people tend to exaggerate on polling. This is a problem with all forms of polling, but its significantly worse with internet polling.

And perhaps these concerns were outlined in their methodology. Again, I don't know the source nor have I read through it but these concerns were definitely not reflected in his original post. Polls should be picked apart but let's start doing it in a more thought out manner.

Even IF we assume that internet polling is poorer than other methods, who is to say this study (including assumed flaws) couldn't be used as a proxy instead? The accuracy of trust placed in each outlet could be off assuming poorer standards but it may not necessarily change the tiered ordering of the list very much.

TL:DR. Assuming internet polling is poorer, do we really think Occupy Democrats would rank higher than The Economist given in person or telephone polling methods? Using it simply as a proxy we could determine that The Economist is more trusted than Occupy democrats, while understanding the magnitude between these differences needs different polling methods.

Your TL:DR. was as long as what you were summing up.

I really dont care about this issue and i didnt read anything from the citation or know the methodology, i simply wanted to clarify what is commonly demonstrated as a big problem with internet polling and why people should not really rest their arguments on them.

Why? because online polls are usually as accurate as Fox news. It has nothing to do with the time period, simple the method they used to collect the data.

And to be honest i am surprised that this got done by a university , i would have thought that a place that teaches about this, would be well aware of the fact that online polls are highly inaccurate.

But i get that this poll is probably done as a joke.

Internet polling is poor, is a simple fact not an opinion. Internet polls are not accepted in any serious academic environment because of it's tendency to be more fake and inaccurate.

And if the concerns was raised then they would have conducted this either face to face or via telephone , which again is subject to it´s own problems

So you've added nothing value, thanks for your input.

You had a chance to add to your original critique and you didn't. Again, just lazy.

Are you really oblivious to online pollings flaws?

But let me use a source you probably know and read called the NY Times.

Those “final debate polls” consisted of readers on news sites who were asked their opinion of who had won.

While it looked good for Mr. Trump, pollsters and some journalists offered a protest: Informal, unscientific “polls” on news sites produce junk data that does not indicate how the public actually feels, and should not be believed as an indication of — well, much of anything.

“Those do a good job of engaging audiences online, and they do a good job of letting you know how other people who have come to the webpage feel about whatever issue,” said Mollyann Brodie, the executive director for public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But they’re not necessarily good at telling you, in general, what people think, because we don’t know who’s come to that website and who’s taken it.”

Professional pollsters use scientific statistical methods to make sure that their small random samples are demographically appropriate to indicate how larger groups of people think. Online polls do nothing of the sort, and are not random, allowing anyone who finds the poll to vote. They are thus open to manipulation from those who would want to stuff the ballot box. Users on Reddit and 4chan directed masses of people to vote for Mr. Trump in the instant-analysis surveys, according to The Daily Dot. Similar efforts were observed on Twitter and other sites.

Is this the part where the dopey right pretends that this study and all the polls are bogus? Lul.

Again, don't be lazy. Anyone can copy/paste. I asked you to specifically critique the paper in question based on methodology or metrics. You failed to do that. Do you really think that online polling issues would switch the trust issues of Foxnews or Inforwars between the Economist or BBC?

Tell me right now, do you think the rankings are off, and if so, why? (based on an honest review of the literature).

Eh? i already said why. The polling was done by online polls. The whole paper is built around the online polling data which is highly inaccurate

Which makes the data unscientific and unusable.

What this university did was make a study that no one except the few radical lefts you see in this thread would ever dream of using.

@Jacanuk: With over 8700 taking it. I doubt it is that inaccurate.

Due to unbalanced participation rates across newsrooms, it is possible a single newsroom with a high response rate could systematically bias statistical analyses. To address this concern, several steps were taken. First, in addition to having the names of the newsrooms associated with each observation, zip codes were reported by nearly all respondents (99.6%) in the sample. Although not perfect, a spatial representation of the zip codes like the one presented in the figure below provides evidence of heterogenous geographical coverage above and beyond what one might otherwise expect after only observing the number of responses for each of the newsrooms. Second, weights were calculated assuming it would be more desireable to have an equal number of responses from each news room. Group level means were examine for a number of different cross-sections and no discernable pattern distinguishing the weighted and unweighted samples emerged. Finally, in addition to the linear regression models reported in the following section, multilevel models were also performed to directly model variability explained by differences between newsrooms rather than differences between individuals. As was the case with the survey weights, the results appeared consistent across all statistical solutions.

More does not equal accurate, the problem is that you cannot verify the data at all. Also a person can take and retake the poll as many times as they want, not to mention bots, faked userdata etc. etc. etc. etc.

That is why any reputable org. like Gallup or Nielsen never uses online polls in any serious manor.

As mentioned by the NY times,

You dismissed Gallup's historically low Trump approval rating.

I think you're just going to say "that doesn't count" to any facts you don't happen to like.

You need to stick to the truth, i never dismissed the poll, i dismissed the narrative you and CNN/leftmedia went with.

The spin was horrible and just confirms again the fact that CNN is a left biased media like NY times and Washoutington post