The results? Probably will not shock you, to be honest …
Fake news, alternative facts, SAD — all these phrases and many like them are quickly becoming mainstays in America that help define, for better or worse, the depressing state of media in 2017. It's a cultural shitshow out there, and doesn't appear to be getting any better.
What media company people choose to get their facts from says a lot about who a person is and what they believe in though. Don't believe that? Take a look at what sources readers are pulling from, and then compare that to the electoral map of the past election. The team over at HighSpeedInternet.com recently did that and found what sources are used the most in each of the 50 states (and D.C.) by using data from Google Trends. The results? Probably will not shock you, to be honest.
The front runners are clearly Fox News and CNN, with the latter overtaking the other by just one state in the union. CNN is trusted and used the most by 15 states, over Fox News' 14. What is surprising, is that had this map been created before the election, pollsters might have dealt with far more accurate predictions than the embarrassing ones media peddled for weeks leading up to the vote. "A state’s preferred online news source predicted the way in which that state would vote in the 2016 election with a high degree of accuracy," states HSI.
But people still hate the media right now, at least that's how a recent Gallup poll sees it. Per that company's predictions, Americans' trust in the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" is at a historical low of 32 percent. That is, 2 out of 3 people in this country think journalists are full of shit — and maybe rightfully so?
The hope is that analysis like this coming from the next couple of years might do some good in the industry. An executive at CNN, or Fox News, has the chance now to look at the reality of the situation, accept it, and then move toward a more fair and balanced system of coverage to win over 'the other side' for a more civil election in 2020.
Just kidding, don't hold your breath.
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