Study: 42 percent of Republicans believe accurate but negative stories qualify as fake news

[applegrove]

By Erik Wemple at the Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/01/16/study-42-percent-of-republicans-believe-accurate-but-negative-stories-qualify-as-fake-news/?utm_term=.d0b75d749f3d

"SNIP..........

All those media-trust studies have a tendency toward the rote. Yes, we already knew that the public had little trust in the country’s journalistic organs. Yes, we knew that finding credible sources could be a harrowing pursuit for the public. Yes, we knew that an increasing portion of the U.S. public felt that the news was biased.

Yet this nugget from a new Gallup-Knight Foundation survey just about knocked the Erik Wemple Blog out of a decade-long media-research torpor:

Four in 10 [or 42 percent of] Republicans consider accurate news stories that cast a politician or political group in a negative light to always be “fake news.” [The corresponding figure for Democrats is 17 percent.]

Perhaps President Trump’s associates should place that data point in his daily briefing packet so that he can brag about it. There’s precedent for that, after all: Back in September 2016, a Gallup poll found cratering public trust in the media. Asked about that situation, Trump despaired not. “I think I had a lot to do with that poll … because I’ve exposed the media. If you look at the New York Times, and The Washington Post, and if you look at others: the level of dishonesty is enormous. It’s so dishonest. I can do something that’s wonderful and they make it sound terrible,” Trump said in an interview.

............SNIP"

[maxsolomon]

1. We're on the road to Authoritarianism

Putin's victory will be complete once the 2024 elections are cancelled because of the threat Liberals pose to America.

[BigmanPigman]

2. Where is their Webster's Unabridged?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. I suspect the proportion of young Republicans saying that is even greater

Here's the full poll; they also give age groups believing that (page 32): https://kf-site-production.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/pdfs/000/000/242/original/KnightFoundation_AmericansViews_Client_Report_010917_Final_Updated.pdf

The overall figure believing it is 28%; among Democrats 17%, Independents 26%, Republicans 42%. The age breakdowns are: among 18-29 year olds, 27%, 30-49 25%, 50-64 30%, 65+ 30%. But remember that Republicans are relatively rare among young people; to keep the figure for that age group at 27%, compared with 30% for the heavily Republican 65+, I think the young Republicans are really heavily defining "fake news" as "news that hurts my party". And that's depressing, since it's a problem that may not go away as the population ages.