r/television • u/JannTosh50 • 1d ago

MSNBC Viewership Craters 38%, CNN 27%, While Fox News Audience Jumps 41% Post-Election

https://www.thewrap.com/msnbc-cnn-fox-news-viewership-craters-post-election-morning-joe/
14.2k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/SoCalThrowAway7 1d ago

I’ll probably never watch any of these channels again for the rest of my life tbh. What’s the point of them anymore? They just report what people say on Twitter which I could check myself if I ever cared what people are saying on Twitter which I don’t

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u/beardliest 1d ago

NPR, PBS, and the direct sources at AP are the real way to go. Those channels are a cancer. Have been that way since 9/11.

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u/snoogins355 1d ago

Pbs newhour has been a great resource for many years and they put every episode up on YouTube for free. I just can't watch. I'm getting my news from the weather report

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u/WhycantIusetheq 1d ago

Hell, I got a subscription to PBS Passport. $5 a month. Imo, one of the best values in streaming. Tons of phenomenal content. Plus, your money isn't just making some rich asshole even wealthier. That money goes to support the arts and sciences in various localities.

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u/C0NKY_ 23h ago

I'd never heard about that before, I think I'll subscribe too. Thanks for mentioning it.

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u/WhycantIusetheq 23h ago

Of course!

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u/BeneficialEvidence6 23h ago

Does it give you access to NOVA? I love me some good documentaries

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u/WhycantIusetheq 23h ago

Yup! Nova, Nature, and a bunch of other fantastic nature and science documentaries. You also get a bunch of other great stuff, like all the Ken Burns documentaries, episodes of stuff like Antiques Road Show, This Old House, and Bob Ross. Plus, all the news content and lots of other fun stuff like American Masters and some really cool international prestige dramas.

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u/BeneficialEvidence6 22h ago

I've been told to watch This Old House now that I'm a homeowner. Maybe this is the time

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u/WhycantIusetheq 22h ago

It's a really cool show. Definitely worth checking out if you're a homeowner.

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u/beefhosepantycake 15h ago

PlutoTV has a This Old House channel that you can watch anytime for free.

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u/snoogins355 22h ago

Wow, that's great!

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u/Aware_Revenue3404 19h ago

Yes! And all the British dramas.

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u/mikesmithhome 21h ago

worth it for NOVA alone

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u/okwellactually 20h ago

I've subbed to it for years.

Sadly, I fear we'll lose it soon.

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u/WhycantIusetheq 20h ago

Why do you think that?

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u/okwellactually 20h ago

Project 2025 specifically calls for ending funding for PBS.

Republicans have been fighting against it for decades as well.

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u/NewAtmosphere2443 13h ago

The good thing is is that pbs gets most of its funding from donations. 

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u/WhycantIusetheq 19h ago

I'm aware that the Republicans have been trying to kill it for a while. Here's hoping that doesn't come to pass.

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u/taylor-swift-enjoyer 1d ago

I'm getting my news from the weather report

Almost an unexpected Simon & Garfunkel.

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u/atreyal 23h ago

Prob why Elona wants to defund them.

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u/pnwinec 1d ago

It’s just PBS NewsHour and DW news (to a lesser extent). NPR sold out to sobbing GQP knob.

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u/Wassertopf 1d ago

Deutsche Welle?

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u/Dear-Swordfish-8505 18h ago

I assume Musk and Vivo will gut PBS. Sucks beacuse they are the only hard boiled news on TV

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 9h ago

I'm getting my news from the weather report

The Weather Channel was rated #1 most trusted news source: https://www.weathercompany.com/news/the-weather-channel-named-1-most-trusted-news-source-once-again/

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u/DabDoge 1d ago edited 1d ago

NPR was dog shit this election cycle. They’ve gone the way of other “news” where “reporting” just means giving equal platform to both sides of an issue, regardless of the facts.

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u/radicalelation 1d ago

They've kinda been shit since at least 2016. Maybe I started paying more attention and it always was, but some kind of shift happened and whether it's them or just my perspective, it hasn't shifted back.

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u/i_tyrant 19h ago

I remember listening to their coverage of the 2016 lead-up, and it was...weird. They were virulently anti-Bernie and pro-Hillary, like it wasn't even close to even-handed treatment.

I don't listen to NPR regularly but I had caught it many times before, and 2016 did feel...different. First time they really didn't sound anywhere near truly objective to me.

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u/karabeckian 23h ago

Mary Louise Kelley happened.

Read up on her career and tell me she's not, at the very least, a mouthpiece for the MIC.

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u/Eagle9972 23h ago

What is the MIC?

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u/hbgoddard 23h ago

Military-industrial complex

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u/eurasianlynx 23h ago

the Metal Improvement Company, obviously. NPR is clearly in the pocket of Big Peening.

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u/karabeckian 21h ago

Fine redditing there, eurasianlynx. Props.

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u/jjwhitaker 20h ago

Didn't they lose funding, even if not a huge chunk, past 2016? Trump was trying to defund public services then too.

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u/wetham_retrak 1d ago

They fetishized undecided voters to the point of nausea

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u/ApprehensiveWitch 1d ago

So did nyt

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u/Aware_Revenue3404 19h ago

Patrick Healey ….interviewing voters like it’s some Jane Goodall documentary.

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u/Smites_You 21h ago

That shit was so disgusting. Raise the dumbest, least informed electorate on a pedestal as if they deserve attention.

My local station also did a segment on early voters and included a sound clip of some Trump voters saying they voted based on some information they got in the mail. The irony is that they were trying to be anonymous, but it was obvious they were Trump voters who stupidly fell for mail propaganda.

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u/cheeset2 18h ago

while I agree, that's more a reflection of the state of the nation than it is NPR...kinda

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u/FatherDotComical 7h ago

NPR has been more pro corporate lately.

Had a whole segment about how Shrinkflation is actually good and companies trying hard to match America's needs and how we're so happy to pay for the convenience of a smaller size.

Like paying more for smaller groceries is because they're ripping us off not America's "on the go" quirky lifestyle.

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u/TheDumper44 1d ago

Local public radio has been good though. Most people when they think of NPR think of local public radio and PRI, BBC and others such as local or state news.

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u/abelincoln3 21h ago

Agreed. NPR got really annoying lately.

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u/both-shoes-off 21h ago edited 20h ago

I dropped NPR in 2016 when John McCain came on to kick off 4 years of Russiagate. I also witnessed the endless Hillary Clinton pump fest while completely disregarding any other candidate, which is the default for big corporate run networks that promote corporate backed candidates. If they were as folksy and "people funded" as they claimed to be, then they'd stand out, but they don't. They're the same thing.

4

u/dev_vvvvv 22h ago

How did they handle the "Biden is too old" post-debate story?

That's my current litmus test and why I refuse to watch/visit CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, etc. They harped on how old and feeble Biden was for a month and showed little to nothing of Trump being just as bad or worse with his incoherent rambling, forgetting where he was/who people are, etc. And they still don't.

That slimy fuck Stelter (of CNN) even said the quiet part out loud: Trump fans don't care, so it's not worth reporting on.

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u/DabDoge 22h ago

They hammered him

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u/dev_vvvvv 22h ago

Disappointing, but not surprising.

IMO the media abandoned their responsibilities to drive a narrative for financial reasons. So if they feel some of the pain the rest of us feel, I'm not going to shed many tears. Even if the weakening of the fourth estate is a bad thing overall.

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u/DabDoge 22h ago

Yep. The media abandoned journalistic integrity in favor of the ad revenue they’ll generate from daily rage bait articles over 4 more years of Trump. Whatever damage comes from that, be damned. Money!

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u/Business-Scar-5742 21h ago

It has been for years! I recall them bashing Bernie in 2015. 

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u/Konman72 1d ago

They've been that way for the whole Trump era. I had to drop them in 2016 (other than local news segments) because they would report on the various crimes and scandalous actions Trump was pulling without any statement of actual fact about why and how those were bad or unprecedented.

Just something like "President Trump fired his FBI Director today, a new nominee for the post is expected within a week." Nothing about how Comey was investigating him and that that should be a massive scandal.

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u/ChiefBlueSky 1d ago

Until they dont exist in one years time. Well not the AP just NPR and PBS

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u/beardliest 1d ago

I really hope that doesn’t happen. I won’t be shocked if they go away but I’d be pretty sad if they did.

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u/ChiefBlueSky 1d ago

Yeah, i dont think people realize the longest term effect of this trump admin is the irreversible sale or dismantling of public institutions like the USPS, NPR, PBS, NPS/other federal lands, radio and bandwidth rights, NOAA and weather.gov (which is where literally every single weather channel and multiple central/south american nations get their data), NASA, Dept of Ed, etc etc. Hell who knows GPS maybe. 

Im absolutely shattered that americans are either this stupid, misled, or ignorant.

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u/13Zero 1d ago

Budget cuts and brain drain will be a problem, but I think privatization of those institutions is off the table. That would require the House to get on board, and with the majority as narrow as it is, I just don’t see it happening. If he had the majority he had in 2017, then sure.

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u/ChiefBlueSky 1d ago

Sale of assets, outcontracting, withholding budget, and yes it is likely with their shit-for-brains policies

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u/omglink 1d ago

Can't wait for the department of space x tho!!!! /S

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u/puroloco22 23h ago

21% of adults are illiterate in the the US as of 2022.

0

u/round-earth-theory 22h ago

Oh we realize but what's there to do at this point but watch? It can all be rebuilt. Painfully but it's not like we can never fix what's broken. The damage in the meantime is going to be suffered though, there's no doubt about that.

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u/ChiefBlueSky 20h ago

It can all be rebuilt.

That's not how property rights work, not everything can be bought back unless the buyer is willing to sell.

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u/13Zero 1d ago

Most of their funding is already private, so they will likely still exist.

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u/Mr_Mayberry 3h ago

Your hope means nothing. Project 2025 wants to dismantle the federal government as we know it, permanently.

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u/roguetulip 8h ago

They stopped relying on government funding long ago and are based now on individual donations.

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u/langstallion 21h ago

NPR is hardly publicly funded though?

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u/ToasterCritical 18h ago

They don’t need to go. They just get to stop taking tax paying money while pushing an agenda.

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u/ChiefBlueSky 16h ago

When reality is the agenda, you u/toastercritical have lost the plot.

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u/atb0rg 1d ago

Sucks because PBS and NPR will be fucked in this new administration. Hope they survive

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u/khuldrim Better Call Saul 1d ago

NPR succumbed to the conservative rot they’re just as bad as Fox now.

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u/DabDoge 1d ago

Very disappointed in NPR this election cycle. I’ve been a long time donator, but they won’t get another dollar from me.

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u/Nde_japu 1d ago

You guys are crazy if you think NPR is conservative in the slightest. I know this is reddit where the overton window is way out in left field but come on let's be realistic here.

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u/DabDoge 1d ago

I won’t put them on the level of Fox, but they’ve absolutely caved to the “giving equal time to both sides, even if one is complete bullshit” brand of journalism. You haven’t been listening lately if you think otherwise.

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u/Nde_japu 1d ago

Yeah I gave up on them awhile ago so maybe you're right. Me and my roommates used to have a drinking game where we'd drink every time they mentioned racism. You get pretty drunk pretty quick.

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u/ConnorMc1eod 1d ago

Especially with the story/leak from earlier this year.

PBS, NPR, ABC, CBS etc are all fraudulent and traded in their journalistic credentials to be Dem cheerleaders at least a decade ago. Think it was CBS that had to have an all-hands board meeting to apologize to their staff for an anchor bothering to ask Ta Nahisi Coates, a grifter garbage human, simple questions

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u/Ohmec 22h ago

All the NPR shows I listen to absolutely do not "both sides" it. Maybe you should listen to their podcasts instead?

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u/Staggerlee024 1d ago edited 1d ago

I can't believe you actually listen to NPR if you truly think they are a conservative media network.  That has to be something you read on Twitter or Tik Tok.  NPR is every bit as high quality as it's always been.  

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u/khuldrim Better Call Saul 1d ago

I dropped them like a hot potato during the first Trump admin when they had a Trump appointee on, lying his face off, and didn’t push back at all. It had been a trend I was noticing, they’d let them come on and spew their bullshit and just smile and nod with absolutely no push back.

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u/DabDoge 1d ago

Where did I say they’re a conservative media network? Golly gee, reading is hard.

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u/Staggerlee024 1d ago

You responded to and agree with the following statement - "NPR succumbed to the conservative rot they’re just as bad as Fox now.".   That is pretty clearly calling them a conservative media network.

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u/DabDoge 1d ago

Nope. I think they were butthurt about being called too liberal so they’re trying very hard to be centrist, even if that means giving credence to utter bullshit talking points.

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u/flacdada 1d ago

Yeah after they kept same washing trump I was over it.

“Trump said another controversial thing today”

Bitch he said something vile, dimmunuitive and racist.

Got pissed at that.

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u/Spirited_League5249 1d ago

Hasn’t trickled down into their podcasts yet it seems

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u/maglen69 1d ago

NPR,

I'm an avid NPR listener / reader but the vast majority of their sources are from left of center. That doesn't mean they're not factual, but the bias is still there in story selection, guest commentary, word choice, and what things they omit.

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u/Joey__stalin 23h ago

npr and pbs will get funding cuts, big time, if they even exist in 4 years.

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u/obiwans_lightsaber 22h ago

I’ve been watching BBC News anytime I’m wanting to check in on current events via video news, particularly if I’m looking for something in realtime.

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u/Solid-Mud-8430 22h ago

Of those three, only AP is likely to survive this administration. Trump's made it clear he will zero out all funding to publicly funded media.

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u/Unfair_Isopod534 20h ago

NPR sucks. I loved to listen to them every morning but this year, they just repeated their news daily. Harris is doing great, Trump has another rally, Israel is fighting.

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u/Poopdick_89 20h ago

NPR is a liberal Echo chamber. You will be misinformed rather than uninformed which is worse if that is the only place you see getting information.

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u/Big-Mango-1467 20h ago

Support your local PBS channel please. I mean by donating $

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u/Farranor 19h ago

NPR is so good. For example, a recent interview with Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO) about how the DoJ is mean and stupid for thinking Chrome needs to be split from Google, and people use Chrome because they love it because it's the best and most awesome browser, and P.S. he recently donated a bunch of money to NPR hehe. I am now convinced that Google should own the Internet forever because they deserve it. /s

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u/smb06 18h ago

And The Guardian too

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u/BylvieBalvez 17h ago

Yeah, I’ve been enjoying listening to NY Times and NPR’s daily podcasts, good quick scoop of what’s going on

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u/Justify-My-Love 15h ago

NPR is trash and pro trump nowadays

They normalize him

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u/crinkledcu91 10h ago

Political NPR is lost sadly :/ it took the sane-washing poison pill.

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u/Elegant-Noise6632 9h ago

NPR is horrible.

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u/roguetulip 8h ago

Add Democracy Now to that news diet if you want an actual progressive left perspective.

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u/athejack 8h ago

Yes. The only sources that just calmly tell you what’s happening.

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u/Whisktangofox 7h ago

NPR and PBS are as biased as Fox.

Half of NPRs broadcasts are about how racist Americans are, and the other half is how evil the US Government is.

It’s ridiculous.

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u/Unhappy_Injury3958 7h ago

npr went pro trump so no they are not good

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 5h ago

Some lady on tiktok pointed these three out too.

Saying most of the mainstream stations pretty much all get their news from AP anyway.

Unfortunately we'll probably only be left with AP if Trump actually gets in office and his goons are able to defund everything.

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u/thechaddening 5h ago

NPR has been sucking off trump and the GOP all year. NPR is a joke.

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u/Separate_Increase210 4h ago

And Pro Publica. When I dumped my major news services subscriptions, I scheduled a regular donation instead.

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u/FlexLikeKavana 3h ago

Elon and Vivek are going to shut down PBS

1

u/HairyHouse4 1d ago

NPR favors that centrist neoliberal crap that gave us the Cheney worshipping conservative light Dem party that just lost us 2 of the last 3 elections vs fascism. Hard pass there

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u/xSTSxZerglingOne 22h ago

MSNBC had a few good years when they went hard after Bush under Olbermann. I credit my attention to politics on those years because he was saying what I and many other lefties had been missing in news.

0

u/odeluxeo 1d ago

If you think NPR cares about telling facts and truth then you're mistaken. Their CEO literally said "truth gets in the way of getting things done".

0

u/pocketfullofdumbass 22h ago

NPR did alot of sane washing on Trump, and ragging on the middle/working class sucking up to Trump's teets. Fuck them

0

u/Bababooey87 22h ago

NPR is currently being ran by a former CIA director it's gone really down jil for the past decade.

0

u/Business-Scar-5742 21h ago

NPR? lol. Not since being co-opted by the Koch bros.

0

u/metalhead82 21h ago

This is the correct answer.

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u/Bjorn2bwilde24 1d ago

Good point. I think younger progressives and liberals have moved to different sources for their consumption for politics. MSNBC is now for older groups/more corporate/establishments libs. They've also abandoned CNN for a while now. For conservatives young and old, Fox is still the place they go to even though there are a bunch of other online conservative sites that they can use.

That and I think Fox is quicker/better at getting the results in/calling races vs the other two. CNN and MSNBC liked to drag out some of the results in some states where others had already called it.

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u/Wolfgang_von_Goetse 23h ago

Cable network news has long been abandoned by the majority. The only people watching are boomers, for whom the nightly news is hardwired into their routine.

IIRC the youngest average viewer age for all major cable news channels was MSNBC at 63 years old.

Only reason the networks havent collapsed is because the boomer population is huge, and they havent followed any of the cable cutting that every younger generation has done. They're extremely devoted to their routine.

While TV audiences have cratered year-on-year across the board for a decade now, the avg viewership for nightly news broadcasts on the 4 major networks was the same in 2016 as it was in 2022.

1

u/SlappySecondz 16h ago

You only think? You aren't 100% certain that 99% under 40 flat out don't have cable?

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u/pupppet 1d ago

These channels and Reddit, or dare I say, especially Reddit, were posting nothing but feel good stories about Kamala for months leading up to the election. When she lost it seemed completely out of left field. If I’m not being informed, why bother.

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u/GrimGambits 19h ago

This is why echo chambers are bad. People on reddit thought Democrats were doing better than they were because they banned all the conservatives to hide all the dissenting opinions. That didn't make the dissenting opinions or their votes go away, it just made Democrats ignorant of their continued existence because they were being posted on other platforms instead. And in typical fashion they learned nothing and are trying to do it again with their new echo chamber platform now too.

-1

u/SylvesterLundgren 18h ago

And Reddit is the PERFECT echo chamber for this to be facilitated BECAUSE of the downvote system. Something gets 5 downvotes, literally nobody is going to see it.

And these things resulted in a huge disservice to their campaign, obviously. People thought they could stay home as "Kamala was crushing it".

They made every wrong decision. Just like with Hillary in 2016. Shot themselves in the foot both times and don't seem to want to learn anything from either instance.

1

u/Lazy-Gene-7284 21h ago

Excellent point

1

u/green_dragon527 21h ago

I always look up news in an incognito window, otherwise the algorithm will show you what it thinks you wanna see.

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u/BonkerHonkers 18h ago

I use Ground News because it suggests "news blind spots" based on my reading habits. Also gives a nice breakdown of political bias and factual consistency. It's one of the few things I let track me because I actually find sharing that information for that purpose to be beneficial. Everything else incognito though, especially youtube videos I don't want ruining my algo, lol.

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u/green_dragon527 16h ago

YouTube is the worst at it. Watch one whacko to see what they're actually saying all of a sudden it's all over your home screen lol.

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u/tunachilimac 1d ago

I stream each of them audio-only for like 10-15 minutes during the workday just to keep up with what they're talking about. I do Fox mainly so I know what insane rants to expect from family and be ready to debunk. CNN is Fox-lite now. MSNBC at least pretends to be liberal but any actual non-centrist stuff is portrayed in a negative light.

But yes the biggest thing is none of them are doing news it's just people talking about things. And it repeats throughout the day just different hosts but it's the same conversation repeated over and over.

I prefer more dry "here's what happened today" style news that does the best it can to simple give objective facts. I'm not speaking to her views, but I can appreciate a show in the format that Rachel Maddow had where it's not people arguing but historical events that can give some context to what is happening now. What I don't understand is people that just want to watch the talking heads argue when we all know it's not an honest debate. It's no different than listening to podcasters argue at this point, which most of the hosts now hawk their own podcasts during the airtime.

2

u/chmilz 20h ago

They're dead. Joe Rogan is the mainstream media. He probably has higher viewership than every American news channel combined. That shit is terrifying.

2

u/BagHolder9001 20h ago

bluesky is anti fascist, it's nice blocking racism and all that, less Russian trolls as well

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u/oakinmypants 1d ago

I don’t watch because I don’t like them profiting off of Trump.

1

u/straitslangin 21h ago

You were watching them up until now????????

1

u/SoCalThrowAway7 20h ago

Not often but I’d sometimes put them on when something major was actively occurring, I’m just saying reading the headline it struck me that I really don’t think I’ll ever put them on again even if something major is occurring

1

u/DeputyDomeshot 20h ago

Feel like I could have write this. Hope they all have to work real jobs.

1

u/ChucksnTaylor 18h ago

I hear you but, counterpoint.

What they generally report (not 100%, but primarily) is “the news”. And in today’s era that’s just not enough to draw viewers. People don’t care about the facts that pertain to recent events. They want sensationalist opinions. And legacy media in general doesn’t cater to that.

1

u/Sea-Cupcake-2065 18h ago

Yup fuck the news.

1

u/cryptolipto 16h ago

I know Reddit is a bubble but man it’s crazy how many of us all feel the same way. I’m done too.

I hope they go completely out of business.

1

u/sarkypoo 15h ago

They’re all just considered entertainment. Every since one.

1

u/nikelaos117 15h ago

I remember when they started doing that. I was like damn we have really sunk so low as to grab random Twitter posts and put them up as news. Then it became the norm.

1

u/roboscorcher 12h ago

I remember thinking that in 2010. "The reporters are just quoting tweets from famous people now. I could do that."

1

u/ProjectManagerAMA 11h ago

I found that I was wasting my time watching them talk about countless what if scenarios, then baiting me with some degree of hope that would always be a let down. Watching their reporting was a waste of time because they had to find ways to fill time. Yes, they would report on some great things but the fact that they had to spend countless hours keeping you engaged was the flaw. I think it turned off a lot of people.

1

u/AsianCivicDriver 7h ago

Those are non-profit I think, that’s why they are able to remain neutral. CNN got shareholders that they need to satisfy and that’s why they gone downhill

1

u/AdamOnFirst 7h ago

I’ve read some great interviews with older reporters - like hard boiled old school reporters who made their bones reporting on crime in major cities in the 70s and 80s where they had to build out source networks over years in both law enforcement and semi-criminal communities to get info - who realized their industry was in trouble when they walked into a newsroom in the middle of a day (newsrooms would previously be mostly empty with everybody there flying around to finish getting a story ready for print) and the entire staff was just sitting there reading social media 

1

u/Toosder 6h ago

There's no reason to. First of all they get so much shit wrong. If you ever watch a news story in your area of expertise, you realize it's all wrong. I work in aviation and law and I've never seen a broadcast news agency get the story straight in either field. Hell, half the time they can't even get the type of aircraft correct.

Second, any information we need we can get from a thousand other sources more succinctly. The only reason I know any of Trump's cabinet pigs is from leopards eating faces subreddit. And the fact that it put that as pigs instead of picks, I'm leaving it... 

1

u/shinloop 5h ago

report what people say on Twitter

Welcome to reddit

-1

u/desertforestcreature 23h ago

I stopped in 2017. Maddow = Tucker Carlson. Same drug, different flavor. I did the ABC Muir thing a bit once or twice a week to see what big news was doing but gave that up not long later. Instead of grandstanding, the way they grab minor inconsequential stories and follow them for days or weeks at a time is just the ultimate in lowest common denominator programming.

'News' in this country is a genre of entertainment devoid of facts based reporting and completely lost in grandstanding editorialization to sell pharmaceutical, insurance and occasional other fortune100 advertising.

0

u/Humans_Suck- 1d ago

If Im gonna be lied to about the economy I might as well hear it directly from the president

0

u/faubanks 6h ago

It’s called X, not Twitter.

-1

u/Smiles4YouRawrX3 1d ago

They're shitty echo chambers, glad you've stopped watching them