Survey: Fox News only network to see increase in trust among viewers since February

Fox News is the only major cable news network that has seen an increase in trust among viewers since February, according to a new survey. 

Researcher Brand Keys found that over the past six months, eight of the nine TV news brands it regularly examines showed lowered trust levels. 

Fox, however, saw its trust among viewers grow to 89 percent, the survey reported — an increase of 3 percentage points since the last poll, taken in February. MSNBC had its trust level among its viewers dip from 93 percent to 90, and CNN fell to 87 percent from 92 percent in February. 

Trust is defined by a number of factors when it comes to TV news, Brand Keys said. Chief among them is a “fair presentation of important content, with accuracy, clarity, and timeliness next contributing to viewer trust evaluations.”

The poll was conducted by asking 3,975 people to rate the TV news brands they watch regularly, more than three times a week. It reported a 95 percent confidence level.

“We believe as people returned to a semblance of pre-COVID normalcy, viewers have quite literally ‘tuned out’ the news,” Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys founder and president, said in an analysis of the survey. 

Fox consistently ranks as the highest-rated cable news network.

Over the past several weeks, as the network’s news division has covered the latest events related to the pandemic, top hosts at the network have increasingly encouraged viewers to seek and receive a coronavirus vaccine. 

A poll published last week found vaccine hesitancy among Fox News viewers had dipped by double digits since March.