Saturday, May 20, 2017
Why Fox News is Losing Viewers
The audience for cable news shrank in 2010, according to a Pew Research Center report, with viewership for the dominant Fox News declining by 11 percent, CNN plummeting by 37 percent, and MSNBC down 5 percent. "It's not that people are not watching cable," says Amy S. Mitchell, deputy director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. "They're just not turning to news as much." The trend was particularly deflating for Fox News, which had been on a ratings growth spurt since 2007. Is this the end of Fox's meteoric climb in the ratings, and, if so, why?
Yes, viewers are finally getting wise: The experts are chalking this up to competition from the internet, says Ellen at News Hounds, but that's only part of it. Online news has been around for years. The main reason for the cable news networks' troubles — particularly those of the unfair and unbalanced Fox News — is that what they offer is not really news. "It's more about infotainment or political theater."
"Fox and other cable news networks lose big chunks of audience"
Wait, Fox is still trampling CNN and MSNBC: Fox News isn't the one with the ratings problems, says Fox host Bill O'Reilly in the Boston Herald. Last month in primetime, we were the second highest rated channel on cable, behind only the USA network. "MSNBC came in 26th, CNN 29th. Not good for them." They could both could use "a program host who is filled with tiger blood." Charlie Sheen, MSNBC needs you.
"Low-rated shows need lowlife Charlie Sheen"
The world isn't supplying enough actual news: There just isn't enough real news out there to fill "three always-on news networks," says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. Devoting an entire cable channel to news "started out as a great idea by Ted Turner," but it "has turned into something far different." The conservative Fox, and its liberal mirror-image MSNBC, are just "blowhard stations" cranking out "propaganda." No wonder people are finding something better to do with their evenings.
Coverage of President Trump dominates the media, and most of it’s negative
Donald Trump dominates the elite media's news coverage, with much of the coverage negative, "setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president," according to a new study of the press via Harvard University.
The study from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy exhibits a firm if still intriguing grasp of the obvious when it comes to a certain slice of press coverage.
Indeed, as tends to be the case with such dissections, it analyzes coverage by those media that academia (and the press itself) tend to be most drawn to: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, the primary newscasts of CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC. It includes Europe's Financial Times, BBC and Germany’s ARD.
There's nothing about a vast array of other outlets, especially news outlets, that tend to have far greater audiences, especially in local markets. How much time have they devoted to Trump and what's been the editorial thrust?
Still, to the extent that a narrow slice sets influential news agendas, the report is useful as it scrutinizes coverage of Trump's first 100 days and finds he was "the topic of 41 percent of all news stories — three times the amount of coverage received by previous presidents."
"Trump has received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where Trump’s coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president," reads the report by Thomas Patterson, a respected government and press analyst.
"Fox was the only news outlet in the study that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall, however, there was variation in the tone of Fox’s coverage depending on the topic."
Patterson's larger historical analysis offers the helpful reminder that bashing the media is not a new phenomenon for a president. There's a long history and, while the report argues that Trump is different by being so public and so obviously relishing a fight, it notes how others, notably Richard Nixon, threatened the press with serious injury (in Nixon's case, the never-executed threat of yanking broadcast licenses).
The report portrays a media that was initially solicitous to Trump, later more critical and, now, distinctly combative. And, all along, he was fascinating and clearly a positive influence on ratings and circulation, especially on the digital side of elite newspapers.
"Our studies of 2016 presidential election coverage found that Trump received more news coverage than rival candidates during virtually every week of the campaign. The reason is clear enough. Trump is a journalist’s dream."
"Reporters are tuned to what’s new and different, better yet if it’s laced with controversy. Trump delivers that type of material by the shovel full. Trump is also good for business. News ratings were slumping until Trump entered the arena. Said one network executive, '[Trump] may not be good for America, but [he’s] damn good for [us].'"
The report serves as a window, too, onto the mentality of journalists — in ways that might ruffle Fox News and other exemplars of conservative conventional wisdom in portraying the "mainstream" press as driven by liberal bias.
"Although journalists are accused of having a liberal bias, their real bias is a preference for the negative."
Patterson harkens to the Vietnam War and Watergate eras in arguing that an anti-political mindset overrode personal political ideology and has remained in place.
"Journalists’ incentives, everything from getting their stories on the air to acquiring a reputation as a hard-hitting reporter, encourage journalists to focus on what’s wrong with politicians rather than what’s right."
And there's this interesting empirical tidbit: "Of the past four presidents, only Barack Obama received favorable coverage during his first 100 days, after which the press reverted to form."
Trump coverage has accelerated what had been a norm, it appears, setting what the report deems "a new standard for negativity." And that's despite the disproportionate amount of the time that Trump himself is quoted, which is seemingly unusual in a world in which politicians tend to bitch that their low esteem partly reflects the press not airing or giving space to their own declarations.
Reliance on Trump's own comments aside, "Of news reports with a clear tone, negative reports outpaced positive ones by 80 percent to 20 percent. Trump’s coverage was unsparing. In no week did the coverage drop below 70 percent negative and it reached 90 percent negative at its peak."
The report also takes subject categories, such as immigration and the economy, to assess how they've been handled.
There are some differences — immigration was overwhelmingly harsh, economic coverage not nearly as much — but one common denominator is that while most of the elite press was negative, Fox News was less so (interestingly, The Wall Street Journal resembled the others more than it did Fox).
At the same time, the elite media caricature of Fox as unremitting Trump shill gets its comeuppance under this more empirical lens (that also includes interesting results on the dominance of Republican newsmakers in commenting upon Trump).
Yes, Fox gave Trump favorable coverage but not overwhelmingly so. By this analysis, the "split was 52 percent negative to 48 percent positive." Liberals' assumption that Fox is handmaiden to the White House Press Office needs more than one asterisk.
No surprise, Fox coverage differed as a function of the topic at hand, with some very negative, some very positive. And, "As was true at the other outlets, Fox’s reporters found few good things to say about the public and judicial response to Trump’s executive orders banning Muslim immigrants or the collapse of the House of Representatives’ first attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare."
"Fox’s reporting on Trump’s appointees and Russian involvement in the election was also negative in tone."
The report ultimately demurs from concluding if the press has been unfair. But it seems to strain to straddle a fence that includes its own deep suspicions (perhaps typical in academic halls these days) about Trump and the arguable implication that negative coverage is warranted.
"If a mud fight with Trump will not serve the media’s interests, neither will a soft peddling of his coverage. Never in the nation’s history has the country had a president with so little fidelity to the facts, so little appreciation for the dignity of the presidential office, and so little understanding of the underpinnings of democracy."
Yes, it agrees, the credibility of the press is low. But, it also underscores, "the Trump presidency is not the time for the press to pull back" even while conceding, "the sheer level of negative coverage gives weight to Trump’s contention, one shared by his core constituency, that the media are hell bent on destroying his presidency."
It concludes with brief reference to one seeming legacy of 2016 campaign coverage: the press missing the concerns of "Main Street."
"The lesson of the 2016 election has been taken to heart by many journalists. Since Trump’s inauguration, the press has been paying more attention to Main Street. But judging from the extent to which Trump’s voice has dominated coverage of his presidency, the balance is still off."
Of course, that might also apply to elite academics, too.
Byron York: Harvard study: CNN, NBC Trump coverage 93 percent negative
The Harvard scholars analyzed the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the main newscasts (not talk shows) of CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC during Trump's initial time in office. They found, to no one's surprise, that Trump absolutely dominated news coverage in the first 100 days. And then they found that news coverage was solidly negative — 80 percent negative among those outlets studied, versus 20 percent positive.
The numbers for previous presidents: Barack Obama, 41 percent negative, 59 percent positive; George W. Bush, 57 percent negative, 43 percent positive; and Bill Clinton, 60 percent negative, 40 percent positive.
Accusations of bias aside, it's simply a fact that a number of negative things happened in Trump's opening 100 days. The Russia investigation, for example, was a source of endless criticism from Democrats and other Trump opponents. The travel ban executive order led to intense argument and losses for the administration in the courts. The healthcare debacle created more negative coverage because it was a major screwup and a setback for both Trump and House Republicans.
That said, the coverage of some news organizations was so negative, according to the Harvard study, that it seems hard to argue that the coverage was anywhere near a neutral presentation of facts. Assessing the tone of news coverage, the Harvard researchers found that CNN's Trump coverage was 93 percent negative, and seven percent positive. The researchers found the same numbers for NBC.
Others were slightly less negative. The Harvard team found that CBS coverage was 91 percent negative and 9 percent positive. New York Times coverage was 87 percent negative and 13 percent positive. Washington Post coverage was 83 percent negative and 17 percent positive. Wall Street Journal coverage was 70 percent negative and 30 percent positive. And Fox News coverage also leaned to the negative, but only slightly: 52 percent negative to 48 percent positive.
Ninety-three percent negative — that's a lot by anybody's standards. "CNN and NBC's coverage was the most unrelenting — negative stories about Trump outpaced positive ones by 13-to-1 on the two networks," the study noted. "Trump's coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity."
The Harvard study had plenty of criticism for Trump. "Never in the nation's history," the authors wrote, "has the country had a president with so little fidelity to the facts, so little appreciation for the dignity of the presidential office, and so little understanding of the underpinnings of democracy."
But the authors made clear that journalists are very much part of the problem. "At the same time, the news media need to give Trump credit when his actions warrant it," the study said:
The public's low level of confidence in the press
is the result of several factors, one of which is a belief that
journalists are biased. That perception weakens the press's watchdog
role. One of the more remarkable features of news coverage of Trump's
first 100 days is that it has changed few minds about the president, for
better or worse. The nation's watchdog has lost much of its bite and
won't regain it until the public perceives it as an impartial broker,
applying the same reporting standards to both parties. The news media's
exemplary coverage of Trump's cruise missile strike on Syria illustrates
the type of even-handedness that needs to be consistently and
rigorously applied.
The Harvard team is undoubtedly now studying coverage of Trump's
second 100 days. (They issued reports on key periods in the presidential
campaign, as well.) The question is, will anything change?
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