C-SPAN Poll Shows Ignorance About SCOTUS Widespread

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We need to poll some college students and recent graduates on this. “Over two-thirds of respondents follow news stories about the U.S. Supreme Court,” C-SPAN reported when the network released a recent poll it commissioned. “In addition, according to the poll, they find the Supreme Court has an impact on their everyday lives, see the Supreme Court as partisan, and express an interest in a more transparent Court.”

Nevertheless, “Sixty-nine percent say they have been following the news in recent weeks concerning President Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court” but “Just over a third (35%) could identify Brett Kavanaugh as President Trump’s pick; 65% could not.”

C-SPAN picked up on another revealing trend: “Television news remains the top source of the public’s information about the Supreme Court, with nearly three quarters of those surveyed saying they get their information about the high court from TV. However, online media has now outpaced newspapers as the public’s second most popular information source for Court news—increasing nine percentage points from our 2017 survey (to 44% from 35%). Newspapers are now the public’s third most common source of Supreme Court news at 37%.”