Rasmussen Reports took Trump up on his Fake News Trophy Contest Tweet, and Trump isn’t going to be happy about the results.
Trump stirred up major controversy over the weekend, tweeting that: “@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!”
.@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2017
That prompted a harsh rebuke by John E. McLaughlin, the former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and former Acting Director of Central Intelligence, whose CIA career spanned more than 30 years, beginning in 1972 during Richard Nixon’s administration.
“If you favor CNN OR Fox and are not dismayed by this, you may now be numb and no longer capable of outrage. Scary if that’s our new normal,” he tweeted.
That tweet prompted another strongly-worded response from former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden who tweeted that he could not believe a sitting President was capable of ‘such an outrageous assault’ on a free press or the First Amendment.”
If this is who we are or who we are becoming, I have wasted 40 years of my life. Until now it was not possible for me to conceive of an American President capable of such an outrageous assault on truth, a free press or the first amendment.
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) November 26, 2017
Trump followed up on Monday, tweeting: “We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!”
We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2017
Well, as it turns out, the conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports decided to take Trump up on his fake news trophy contest and took a poll asking people who they thought should win the award. However, much to Trump’s inevitable chagrin – they included Fox News.
Their three polling questions were as follows:
- Is the current media coverage of political issues and events better or worse than it has been in the past? Or is it about the same?
- How big a problem is so-called “fake news”?
- If the broadcast media established an annual Fake News Trophy, which network should be the first winner – ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC or someone else?
With a “margin of sampling error of +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence,” their survey reported that:
40% of all voters think Fox News should be the winner of the first annual Fake News Trophy.
CNN is in second place with 25% support, followed by MSNBC (9%), ABC (4%), CBS (3%) and NBC (2%). Six percent (6%) say the award should go to someone else, and 11% are undecided.
Their survey also found that: “that 65% of Likely U.S. Voters consider fake news a big problem, with 42% who say it’s a Very Big one. Thirty-two percent (32%) disagree, but that includes only 16% who believe fake news is not a big problem at all.”
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