Fox News dominated election news -- especially among Trump voters
When it comes to campaign news, Donald Trump voters overwhelmingly point to Fox News as their leading source, according to a new survey released on Wednesday.
The Pew Research Center asked voters to write in their main news sources during the election. Forty percent of Trump voters named Fox News, more than tripling the percent who named CNN, the next most common answer.
Among Democrats, CNN led the way with 18%, followed by MSNBC at 8%.
The report adds to growing evidence that U.S. voters consume very different sources of news, with conservatives united in their consumption of Fox News.
Trump and Fox News tussled early on in the campaign cycle when Trump squared off against Megyn Kelly, who has since announced a move to NBC. As Trump's popularity grew, Fox News coverage warmed up to the president-elect. Since the election, Trump supporter Tucker Carlson has been promoted to a major new position (replacing Kelly) and host Sean Hannity has at times seemed to be a direct Trump surrogate.
While supporters of Trump and Hillary Clinton voters had significantly different responses, they did have one thing in common: Facebook. The social network ended up as the third most popular news source for each group, with 7% of Trump voters and 8% of Clinton voters naming it.
Few digital media companies made the list. Breitbart, the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed were each named by 1% of the group surveyed.
"The digital news publishers that played prominent roles in the campaign did not appear to serve as main news sources for either Trump or Clinton voters," wrote the report's authors Jeffrey Gottfried, Michael Barthel and Amy Mitchell.
While not the main sources, internet-based sources did show up when respondents were asked about what they used regularly to get information about the election. Google News (18%), HuffPo (17%) and Yahoo News (12%) led the way. In something of a surprise, only 6% of respondents named the Drudge Report, despite the website's outsized reputation.
Pew surveyed 4,183 adults for the report.
Topics Donald Trump Elections
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
