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You are here: Home / Politics / Media / Who is America’s most trusted newscaster?

Who is America’s most trusted newscaster?

by DougJ|  July 23, 200910:53 am| 40 Comments

This post is in: Media

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The answer probably won’t surprise you.

(via a Sully stunt stand-in)

Update. I realize this is a web poll and thus has no validity. Still amusing, at least to me.

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Reader Interactions

40Comments

  1. 1.

    BDeevDad

    July 23, 2009 at 10:57 am

    Jon Stewart. Story’s been at the top of Digg for two days.

  2. 2.

    MysticalChick

    July 23, 2009 at 10:58 am

    So not surprised on this. The court jester is the only one willing to speak the truth.

  3. 3.

    Napoleon

    July 23, 2009 at 10:58 am

    I am old school and would have went with Chevy Chase.

  4. 4.

    DougJ

    July 23, 2009 at 10:58 am

    Story’s been at the top of Digg for two days.

    Sorry I’m slow on the uptake.

  5. 5.

    Somebody

    July 23, 2009 at 11:01 am

    What’s up with Iowa loving Katie Couric?

  6. 6.

    Comrade Jake

    July 23, 2009 at 11:03 am

    Watch the clip of him TPM posted on the birthers/Lou Dobbs. Seriously I haven’t laughed so hard at a Stewart clip in awhile. The way he routinely takes these cable news asshats to task explains the poll completely.

  7. 7.

    anonevent

    July 23, 2009 at 11:03 am

    And the the rest of the media will miss the point and assume it’s because he’s a comedian. Soon Larry the Cable Guy will be the anchor man at ABC.

  8. 8.

    flounder

    July 23, 2009 at 11:04 am

    I think the Washington Post is getting tired of doing politics chats. Fashion? Sports? It’s all good.

  9. 9.

    Morbo

    July 23, 2009 at 11:05 am

    Necessary caveat: it’s an internet poll. Still, Stewart was saying the emperor had no clothes long before anyone else in the press began to notice. Now it is paying dividends.

  10. 10.

    Michael D.

    July 23, 2009 at 11:05 am

    What does “Sully Stunt Stand-in” mean?

  11. 11.

    mightygodking

    July 23, 2009 at 11:06 am

    What’s really impressive is that Stewart not only tops the majority of states, but there’s only one state (Vermont) where he didn’t at least come in second place.

  12. 12.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    July 23, 2009 at 11:06 am

    Clearly freeped by kids and hippies. There’s just no way Brian Williams should have had that many votes.

  13. 13.

    NonyNony

    July 23, 2009 at 11:08 am

    It’s a web poll. It has no validity other than “someone on the web wanted to push up Stewart’s numbers because that would be hilarious”.

    Now he might actually BE the most trusted newsperson these days. I’d believe it – especially when he’s being measured against Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charlie Gibson. But this poll is meaningless except as an example of “Time Magazine knows that putting a stupid poll on your website draws eyeballs for your advertisers”. And the corollary that if you put a stupid poll up on your website, you have to actually show the results because that’s what your eyeballs expect.

  14. 14.

    BP in MN

    July 23, 2009 at 11:11 am

    @Michael D.:

    Andrew Sullivan’s on vacation, so there are a bunch of guest bloggers at his site, one of whom posted this.

  15. 15.

    Matt

    July 23, 2009 at 11:12 am

    They also say that Americans prefer Bing over Google as their favorite search engine, so take the results with a grain of salt.

    If you look through the other polls, for some reason Iowa skewers the results of everything. And here I thought it was only important every four years or so.

  16. 16.

    Bill H

    July 23, 2009 at 11:14 am

    Not only is it an internet poll, but the number of votes is so small as to be completely meaningless on a state-by-state basis, and almost as meaningless overall.

  17. 17.

    dr. luba

    July 23, 2009 at 11:16 am

    1. What’s the matter with Iowa?

    2. Someone screwed up the Michael Jackson poll. Either that, or 95% of the respondents were from Iowa.

    timepolls.com/hppolls/archive/poll_results_411.html

  18. 18.

    El Tiburon

    July 23, 2009 at 11:18 am

    Napolean, you ignorant slut. I know, close enough.

    Regardless of the poll’s validity, the fact is who here among us trusts any “journalist” on the teevee?

    The only network/cable news I ever see is when it’s being lampooned on TDS or here on the internet tubes.

  19. 19.

    Nathan

    July 23, 2009 at 11:19 am

    Well, Stewart does a better job of accurately covering the relevant news.
    It’s sad, but true. It’s not his fault.

  20. 20.

    Michael D.

    July 23, 2009 at 11:19 am

    Not only is it an internet poll, but the number of votes is so small as to be completely meaningless on a state-by-state basis, and almost as meaningless overall.

    True enough, and I am reasonably sure Doug knows that as well… But hey! I bet the results aren’t that far off!

  21. 21.

    Joshua Norton

    July 23, 2009 at 11:19 am

    Katie Couric’s numbers look about right.

    Brian Williams must have FReeped his own numbers because, no way. Dude – seriously. I wouldn’t trust him to correctly report on the suit he was wearing without a cheat sheet of right wing talking points.

  22. 22.

    NonyNony

    July 23, 2009 at 11:21 am

    @Bill H:

    Not only is it an internet poll, but the number of votes is so small as to be completely meaningless on a state-by-state basis, and almost as meaningless overall.

    I don’t know if that’s necessarily true – a sample of 9K people polled would be a reasonable sized poll if it were done professionally and not as a web poll. And if 2K of those votes didn’t come from “the rest of the world”. But yeah breaking it down into state-by-state votes is questionable – especially given that some of the sample sizes are ridiculous (Wyoming has a low population but a sample size of 12?)

    As a bit of Internet absurdity though I agree with DougJ – it is funny. Just not something I’d use as evidence when arguing about how absurd our media culture is. (Unless your argument entails the absurdity of major “news” publications like Time conducting and promoting web polls that people mistake for scientific polling – but there are probably better examples of that too.)

  23. 23.

    MikeJ

    July 23, 2009 at 11:23 am

    9k would be more than reasonable, it would be complete statistical overkill. You only need about 1000 people for a decent margin of error.

  24. 24.

    DZ

    July 23, 2009 at 11:24 am

    Somewaht OT but very funny.

    open.salon.com/blog/mortimer_hayden_smyth/2009/07/22/shocking_report_lou_dobbs_birth_certificate_a_f…

  25. 25.

    jeff

    July 23, 2009 at 11:27 am

    Whats up with Iowa in the Time polls? They are different from the rest of the US on almost every topic, be it the most trusted newscaster (they picked Katie Couric) to who should get custody of Michael Jackson’s kids (they picked the state).

  26. 26.

    Martin

    July 23, 2009 at 11:32 am

    It has no validity other than “someone on the web wanted to push up Stewart’s numbers because that would be hilarious”.

    Probably not. More likely explanation is that the 18-35 demographic that the web reaches so well is also Stewart’s demographic. I know my mom doesn’t consider Stewart to be a great newsman (though I did convert her away from her ‘liberal’ label of him recently) but she also wouldn’t have done an online poll.

    9k would be more than reasonable, it would be complete statistical overkill. You only need about 1000 people for a decent margin of error.

    Bill H’s point is that it’s a state-by-state poll, so even with perfect distribution, it’s a sample of 180 people per state, which is shitty, and some states were low double-digits, which is laughable. I can personally get 12 opinions in Wyoming on a single phone call. Unrepresentative doesn’t even begin to describe that.

  27. 27.

    Ed Drone

    July 23, 2009 at 11:37 am

    “Soon Larry the Cable Guy will be the anchor man at ABC.”

    He isn’t already? Could have fooled me!

    Ed

  28. 28.

    slag

    July 23, 2009 at 12:30 pm

    An image of previous Time poll results via Good comments. Somebody loves messing with Iowa.

  29. 29.

    lurkergirl

    July 23, 2009 at 12:46 pm

    Trusted, schmusted. The real question is, ‘which newscaster would you rather have a beer with?’

    Oh wait, it would still be Jon Stewart.

  30. 30.

    MikeJ

    July 23, 2009 at 12:49 pm

    Oh, no doubt that it’s to few people to break out subgroups, and as you point out in the first part the bigger problem is it’s not random. However, my point was that with a real random sample, the aggregate number is far, far bigger than it needs to be. I think we’re in complete agreement with each other, just each emphasizing different things.

  31. 31.

    tim

    July 23, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    also not surprised. it was the first name that came to mind when i read the post title.

  32. 32.

    Zifnab

    July 23, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    @Joshua Norton:

    Brian Williams must have FReeped his own numbers because, no way.

    He’s practically a regular on The Daily Show. And he’s got charisma and appeal. I can’t say I trust him, but I can at least see how his audience would vote for him.

  33. 33.

    b-psycho

    July 23, 2009 at 1:26 pm

    @Martin: What exactly is wrong with calling him a liberal? Personally I’d prefer if the “real” newsfolk were as honest about their own views, makes it easier to filter out bias.

    Sure, I can look at blogs and find out that, for example, Brian Williams is relaying Republican talking points. Further more, I can find out that he does that because he subscribes to an institutional view of the media that assumes there are two rational sides to EVERYTHING when in reality, depending on the issue, there could be anything from one reasonable view vs utter nonsense to several reasonable views most of which get ignored. But most of the people that actually watch the evening news don’t do that.

  34. 34.

    vacuumslayer

    July 23, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    No Faux News anchor? Surprising!

  35. 35.

    vacuumslayer

    July 23, 2009 at 3:23 pm

    No Faux News anchor? Surprising!@anonevent:

    And the the rest of the media will miss the point and assume it’s because he’s a comedian. Soon Larry the Cable Guy will be the anchor man at ABC.

    Too late! Already doing the “news” at Fux.

  36. 36.

    Dr.BDH

    July 23, 2009 at 4:41 pm

    Brian Williams would like to be as popular as Jon Stewart, that’s why he goes on the Daily Show. And then complains that Stewart’s been poking fun at him. And says he looked up to Walter Cronkite the way Stewart must have looked up to Carrottop, and Stewart chops him off at the knees with: “You aspired to be like Walter Cronkite — how does it feel to have fallen so short?”

    You do not give Jon Stewart shit…

  37. 37.

    BruinKid

    July 23, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    @dr. luba: That’s because the rest of the world OVERWHELMINGLY wants Congress to pass the resolution, even when nobody in America (other than Iowa) wants to.

    And yes, Internet poll, self-selecting, etc.

  38. 38.

    CalD

    July 23, 2009 at 9:37 pm

    I’d have said America’s only newscaster — at least on cable.

  39. 39.

    Pug

    July 23, 2009 at 10:05 pm

    Stewart wins in an electoral landslide. He carried California, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and even Texas.

  40. 40.

    Jay Severin Has A Small Pen1s

    July 24, 2009 at 8:35 am

    Interesting that Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson did well in states that went to McCain/Palin.

    Are they not still angry at the treatment Palin suffered at the hands of those two? (snark intended)

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