In One Chart: CNN and Fox News are the second and third most divisive brands in the country

The United States in 2019: You’re either with me or against me. According to Media Consult, an increasing number of Americans are digging in as the divide continues to widen since Trump’s itchy Twitter finger made it to the White House. Read More...

America 2019: You’re either with me or against me.

According to a new poll from Media Consult, an increasing number of people across the U.S. are digging in as the political divide continues to widen since Donald Trump’s itchy Twitter TWTR, -1.60% finger made it to the White House.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the partisan echo chambers of the media.

“It is fair to say that the media reacted to Trump’s election with alarm — and changed the tenor of its coverage in a way that made the Democrats think the media is more important and made Republicans think it was more biased,” Matt Grossman, a professor at Michigan State University, explained in the report.

The results of the survey, which polled more than 13,000 people in July, show that news outlets make up 12 of the 15 most politically polarizing brands. Trump Hotels, understandably, tops the list, but then, as you can see, the next 10 are all media companies, led by CNN and Fox News:

The 2018 version of the chart delivered similar results, but the political polarization has clearly become more pronounced since then.

Take CNN, for example. Last year, the difference between net favorability among Republicans and Democrats for the network stood at 66 percentage points. Now, that number is up to 80, due to a 12-point drop among conservatives, who held more negative views than the left of every media outlet except Fox News.

“In a way, it’s really corroboration of the narrative in the industry right now,” GroupM’s Joe Barone was cited by Media Consult as saying in the survey. “The narrative is that we’re living in a polarized world, and media is both contributing to the polarization and reflective of the polarization.”

Read: After checking out this chart, let’s agree to disagree

There’s upside to the divide for the media, of course. Viewership for CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all jumped in 2018, Pew reported. And the New York Times NYT, +0.14% , fourth on the list, posted record print and digital subscriptions.

Aside from Trump Hotels, the only other non-media brands on the list are Smith & Wesson AOBC, -1.88% , favored by Republicans, and Nike NKE, -1.07% , a favorite of Democrats.