And that includes the media – a new survey from Poynter found that 62% believe the media in general is lacking in civility. On the plus side, no one media organization was close to that negative rating.
Also on the plus side, the media improved its standing from 74% the last time Poynter did the survey.
Among the media, the most uncivil organization was Fox News, with PBS all the way at the other end of the spectum. But even Fox’s incivility score – 35 – was far below the 62% score for all media in general (which reminds us of the paradox of wildly negative results when people are asked about a Congress in which the members overwhelmingly are re-elected).
Here are the scores for media outlets, ranked by perceived incivility:
Organization (Uncivil %-Civil %)
Fox News (35%-43%)
MSNBC (31%-49%)
CNN (31%-53%)
New York Times (29%-44%)
NBC News (24%-61%)
ABC News (23%-63%)
CBS News (23%-62%)
USA Today (22%-54%)
PBS (16%-67%)
Poynter also asked which areas are most likely to be hotbeds of incivility. Political advertising took that prize. The survey measured the percentage that will tune a category out for this reason.
Category (% tuning out)
Political advertising (66%)
Politics (58%)
Government (55%)
Election coverage (54%)
OpEds-editorials (49%)
News reporting (45%)
Twitter (36%)
Social networks (35%)
