A recent study that looked at Americans’ perceptions of 30 major news outlets found a distinct political gap when it came to which TV/video sources they watched and most trusted.

A majority (57%) of Republicans and independents who lean Republican said they regularly get their news from the Fox News cable network, followed by ABC News (27%), NBC News (24%), CBS News (22%), CNN (20%) and Newsmax (15%).

For Democrats and left-leaning independents, nearly half (48%) regularly watch CNN, followed closely by NBC (47%) and ABC (46%). Other popular TV news sources were CBS (39%), MSNBC (33%) PBS (31%), and Fox News (18%).

In addition to differences in TV media consumption, Republicans and Democrats disagree on which news sources they trust and distrust. Here are a few examples:

• Fox News: 56% of Republicans trust it; 64% of Democrats distrust it.
• ABC News: 61% of Democrats trust it; 43% of Republicans distrust it.
• NBC News: 60% of Democrats trust it; 44% of Republicans distrust it.
• CNN: 58% of Democrats trust it; an equal number (58%) of Republicans distrust it.
• CBS News: 56% of Democrats trust it; 40% of Republicans distrust it.

It’s easy to see that our polarized political environment is evident also in the media that is consumed and trusted by both sides. This is why we at Ad Fontes encourage all of us to break out of our information bubbles and consume media that are popular with the other side politically. Doing so can broaden our own viewpoints about the news, and it can help us when we have conversations with people who disagree with us on the issues. 

You’ll see many of the network and cable TV shows included in the Pew Research study represented on the June Media Bias Chart® for TV/video that we’re releasing today. The 47 sources on the June chart are a small sample of the more than 760 TV/video sources that our team has fully rated.

It’s impossible to show hundreds of logos in one image — they overlap each other, and the result is a completely unreadable chart — so we choose a sample to feature each month. In order to make the logos as large and readable as possible, we have magnified a portion of the chart and removed portions around the edges that contain no sources.

Fifteen shows appear in the green box of the June chart. Remember: Sources recommended by our team to be minimally biased and to provide fact-based information fall within the green box. (More TV/video sources fall within the green box, and we’ll feature those on charts in the future.)

• ABC: Nightline
• Bloomberg: The Pulse with Francine Lacqua
• C-SPAN Live Stream
• CNBC TV Network
• CNN: State of the Union with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash
• CNN: The Arena with Kasie Hunt
• EWTN: EWTN News Nightly
• FOX 2 St. Louis KTVI: FOX 2 News at 6PM
• Fox News: Special Report w/ Bret Baier
• HBO: Surveilled
• Merit Street Media: The News on Merit TV: Morning Edition
• NBC News NOW: NBC News Daily With Kate Snow and Zinhle Essamuah
• NewsNation: NewsNation Prime with Natasha Zouves
• PBS: Frontline
• Scripps News: Weekend

Seven sources appear on the Media Bias Chart® this month for the first time:

• Bloomberg: The Pulse with Francine Lacqua
• CNN: The Arena with Kasie Hunt
• FOX 2 St. Louis KTVI: FOX 2 News at 6PM
• MSNBC: From Russia With Lev
• NBC News NOW: NBC News Daily With Kate Snow and Zinhle Essamuah
• OAN: The Matt Gaetz Show
• Real America’s Voice: The Steve Gruber Show

Don’t see your favorite show on this chart? That doesn’t mean we haven’t rated it! You can search for it on the free version of the interactive chart on the website, which allows access to data on 250 of our top sources. Daily search limits apply.

For expanded access, please consider a News Nerd subscription, which gives you the ability to search all sources we’ve rated and provides many additional benefits.

When you add in our web/print and podcast/audio ratings, our analysts have fully rated more than 4,230 sources, with commercial data on about 12,800 sources. Keep up on all of our work by joining our email list!