How Perceptions of News Accuracy Shift With Outlet -- And Topic

CNN and Fox News were selected because of their political divisiveness and because of how President Donald Trump frames CNN as “fake news” and regularly promotes Fox’s work and his own appearances on the network. Earlier this month, the president applauded Fox’s “Fox & Friends” on Twitter and in the same message called out “Fake News CNN” for its “inaccurately reported stories.”

Both news networks also appear on Morning Consult’s 2018 Most Polarizing Brands. CNN and Fox did not respond to requests for comment about their coverage or perceived bias.

As illustrated in other media bias research, partisans were divided over the accuracy of the headlines by outlet: Democrats were more likely to say articles attached to CNN headlines would be accurate, while Republicans said the same of Fox News.

Democrats were also more likely to say they thought all articles, regardless of headline topic and outlet, would be accurate: 59 percent vs. 53 percent, respectively.

But this pattern broke down and things got a bit messier when looking at specific headline topics. Here are four examples of the headlines we tested.

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