The Most Trusted Name in News...

I'm posting this because I know it will disproportionately bother some people - but the partisan divide sounds about right to me (PDF, and from a "Democratic polling firm" (Rasmussen), PublicPolicyPolling, no less):

A new poll asking Americans whether they trust each of the major television news operations in the country finds that the only one getting a positive review is Fox News. CNN does next best followed by NBC News, then CBS News, and finally ABC News.

49% of Americans say they trust Fox News to 37% who disagree. Predictably there is a large party split on this with 74% of Republicans but only 30% of Democrats saying they trust the right leaning network.

CNN does next best because it is the second most trusted of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. 39% say they trust it compared to 41% who do not, with 59% of Democrats, 33% of independents and 23% of Republicans saying it carries credibility with them.

Given how absurdly biased and partisan much of the mainstream networks have become, it doesn't seem surprising that Fox News, finally attempting to represent a rather large underserved community has rapidly become the most watched news network (though I generally find annoying to watch the rant sessions versus the news segments).

Update: Some are inclined to blame Fox News for everything and that's lead to an amusing correction from yesterday, made even more funny beyond the fact it wasn't caught by editors, was the fact it was written by a former cabinet member in the Clinton Administration (Salon):

The Jan. 25 article "Is the President Panicking" originally stated that Fox News led the charge against Bill Clinton in the '94 midterm elections. Fox News did not come into being until 1996. The story has been corrected. [Correction made 1/27/10]