No, FOX News Was Not the Top 'Objective' Source in the Gallup/Knight Survey — That's Only Half the Story

A widely shared claim holds that a 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey found FOX News to be the news outlet Americans most commonly identify as objective. The verdict: partially false. The survey is real, but the claim strips out a critical detail that completely changes its meaning.

The actual survey, published by the Knight Foundation and Gallup in 2018, did ask Americans to name an objective news source. According to the full data tables, when all respondents are counted together, PBS, BBC, and the Associated Press were among the most frequently named outlets. FOX News was cited by a meaningful number of people — but it did not top the overall list.

Where FOX News did come out on top was within a specific subgroup: Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Among that group, it was the most commonly named objective source. The Washington Post and Poynter Institute both reported on this distinction at the time, noting that the survey's headline finding was actually how sharply Americans divide along partisan lines on what 'objective' even means. Democrats most often named PBS and NPR. Republicans most often named FOX News. There was no single consensus answer.

Poynter specifically flagged that this finding was one of the most mischaracterized results from the survey as it traveled across social media. The subgroup result got detached from its context and presented as a universal finding — a small but consequential edit that flips the meaning.

This kind of misinformation is worth watching for because it uses a real study as its foundation. The survey exists, the question was asked, and FOX News really did rank first — among Republicans. Anytime a claim cites a legitimate poll, check whether the result applies to the full sample or just a slice of it. That single question often exposes the distortion.