CBSN: An experiment worth watching

Last week, CBS launched its own dedicated news channel, called CBSN. Unlike CNN, Fox News or MSNBC, CBSN isn't a cable news channel--it's only available over the Internet. In addition, unlike those cable networks, CBSN isn't (yet) a true 24-hour-a-day service; it has live content from 9 a.m. to midnight U.S. Eastern time on weekdays. I typically watch CBSN on my Roku box, but it's available on basically any device with a fast Internet connection and a web browser. When viewing it on a PC, tablet or smartphone, CBSN has a well-designed user interface that enables the viewer to go back and watch previous stories along with the live feed, and it also gives a preview of upcoming stories.

It's not the user interface or the fact that it's on the Internet that makes CBSN interesting, however; it's the way that the channel presents the news:

• There are plenty of short feature stories, as we've come to expect from cable news, but there's also long, in-depth pieces with details that the 30-minute national news on CBS would never have time to give. These background stories, from reporters such as Pentagon reporter David Martin, provide much more insight than the cable networks usually give.
• So far, CBSN is blissfully free of the spinmeisters and "instant experts" of the cable networks--it's largely hard news, not news and opinion whipped into an indiscriminate souffle.
• With one exception, CBSN has so far stayed away from the "beat it to death" style of continuous coverage of a news story, such as CNN's infamous coverage of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. On Thursday, CBSN carried WCBS's wall-to-wall coverage of two window washers dangling from the side of World Trade Center 1. It was an obvious decision, but in hindsight, they could have cut away from time to time to at least give headlines.
• There's a refreshing casualness to CBSN's anchors. Instead of the suit-and-tie look for men and power suits for women, there are shirt sleeves and open collars--exactly what reporters and editors wear in a working newsroom.

CBSN is going through teething pains; earlier this week, I saw the same segment start and stop three times, and they're having other "slight technical difficulties." However, that's to be expected. On the plus side, CBSN has access to CBS News's worldwide bureaus, local stations and affiliates, and it doesn't have the political conflicts that keep MSNBC and NBC News operating at arm's lengths from each other. That means that it has the resources to compete with any of the cable networks, but with the ability to operate at a much lower cost, because most of the money is already being spent to run CBS News, its owned & operated stations, and affiliates.

While CBSN is still evolving, it's already a good alternative to the cable networks, and it's likely to get better. My hope is that the service will soon start offering some weekend coverage, which might happen if an important news event breaks, or continues, on a weekend.

Who do you trust? It depends on your political party

The Pew Research Center for the People & The Press has released a survey of 1,001 U.S. residents ages 18 or older. Of that group, 239 were Republicans, 286 were Democrats and 384 were independents. Keep those numbers in mind, because they're going to be very important in a minute. The top line of the survey, according to Pew, is "Further Decline in Credibility Ratings for Most News Organizations." And, their findings show that the believability of nine of the 13 news organizations rated fell considerably between the last survey in 2010 and the current survey. The average believability of all the organizations fell 6 points in two years, from 62% positive in 2010 to 56% positive in 2012.

Here's the table of overall ratings for the 13 news organizations:

Overall, the most trusted news sources are local TV news and CBS' "60 Minutes", and the least trusted sources are The New York Times, Fox News and USA Today. Many of the reports on Pew's study stop at that point, but they miss the real story: There are huge differences between how Democrats, Republicans and independents trust news sources:

• Democrats trust everyone except Fox News. Every news source except Fox gets a positive believability rating.
• Democrats rate "60 Minutes", ABC News and CBS News (tie), CNN, NBC News and local TV news as most believable.
• Republicans only trust local TV news, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and (just barely) "60 Minutes" and USA Today. They distrust every other news source.
• Even though Republicans trust Fox News the second-most, its believability rating has fallen 10 points in two years, from 77% in 2010 to 67% now.
• Republicans and Democrats are closest in their perceptions of local TV news, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.
• Independents typically fall between Democrats and Republicans--they're less enthusiastic about news sources in general than Democrats, but less pessimistic than Republicans. "60 Minutes", local TV news, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC News and NPR (tie), the respondents' daily local newspaper they know best and CBS News are the news organizations that rate positively with independents.

Here's the overall table:

This is why the overall ratings that lead the survey, while correct, are very misleading about what the survey actually found. The real takeaways are:

• Political views make a huge difference as to people's overall perceptions of news believability and media preferences.
• Republicans, at least in this survey, are too closed to news and opinions that might conflict with their world views.
• Democrats, again in this survey at least, are too trusting of the news they get from most outlets, and perhaps don't recognize that cuts in newsroom budgets since 2008 have led to a deterioration in the quality of news and opinions from most news organizations.
• Independents are the most cynical about believability across most news outlets, and probably represent the best balance of belief and skepticism.