Negative news coverage of President Donald Trump is going "right over people's heads or under them," pollster and author Larry Sabato told Newsmax TV on Thursday.
"There's a case of where the media coverage and polling results don't really affect the judgment of the people," Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, told host Steve Malzberg on Facebook Live. "As far as what happened in this past election, this has been a long-term trend.
"What's changed is we no longer have broadcasting," he added, referring to the new media landscape driven by cable television and the Internet. "We have narrowcasting.
"Every cable channel and even the major networks have pre-selected, self-selected groups of Americans – and, generally speaking, the people attracted to watch their news already agree to what they're getting.
"That has an enormous impact.
"It doesn't have any impact or it has relatively little impact," Sabato said of the negative news about the Trump administration. "It goes right over people's heads or under them.
"First, a lot of them aren't watching. Most of them aren't watching.
"They're watching something else that's more in tune to their viewpoints – and even if they hear it, it's noise.
"It's cognitive dissonance but it's noise," he explained.
"If they have a fundamental political view, and most people do today because of polarization, it just doesn't affect their ratings."
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