78 Percent Prefer News Outlets That Are Completely Neutral

April 20, 2023: Seventy-eight percent (78%) of voters prefer news outlets that are completely neutral. A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that just 16% prefer news outlets that choose stories and angles that fit their particular worldview.

However, when asked about eight major news outlets, none are perceived as unbiased by more than 31% of voters. Forty percent (40%) of voters say that none of them are neutral and unbiased, including 52% of Republicans and 18% of Democrats. The eight outlets are NBC News, ABC News, CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, MSNBC, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.

Methodology

The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted online by Scott Rasmussen on April 6-8, 2023. Field work for the survey was conducted by RMG Research, Inc. Certain quotas were applied, and the sample was lightly weighted by geography, gender, age, race, education, internet usage and political party to reasonably reflect the nation’s population of registered voters. Other variables were reviewed to ensure that the final sample is representative of that population.

The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 3.1 percentage points.

Note: Neither Scott Rasmussen, ScottRasmussen.com, nor RMG Research, Inc. have any affiliation with Rasmussen Reports. While Scott Rasmussen founded that firm, he left nearly a decade ago and has had no involvement since that time.

Survey Questions

Would you prefer news outlets that are completely neutral and unbiased or news outlets that choose stories and angles that reflect your worldview?

• 78%-Completely neutral
• 16% -Stories and angles that reflect my worldview
• 6%-Not sure

Please let me know if any of the following news outlets are neutral and unbiased:

• 31%-NBC News
• 30%-ABC News
• 23%-CNN
• 23%-Fox News
• 22%-The New York Times
• 18%- MSNBC
• 18% -The Washington Post
• 18% -The Wall Street Journal
• 40%/None of the above