It doesn't look like things have gotten much better. According to a University of Maryland study, the network's viewers are more misinformed about American political issues than any other channel. [PDF version of the study]
Fox's senior vice president for news Michael Clemente didn't respond gracefully.
"The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with." [Source]Unfortunately, his "ad universitas" attack is misleading. Clemente tries to dodge the substance of the study by attacking the reputation of the school that produced it. Given his claim that he'd "regard the study with the same level of veracity it was researched with," I'd like to see some other school duplicate the results.
That's not my only grievance. Back in November, FoxNation.com "reposted the first two paragraphs [of a fake news article from The Onion] in their culture section with nary a sign as to its fictional nature." [Source]
Fox's claim to be "fair and balanced" is simply incredulous. You can't deliberately mislead viewers to push a conservative agenda and still be believable. And you can't be taken seriously if you allow falsehoods (satire or not) to be presented as news.
Well, considering their ratings, maybe you can. Oh well, you can't fight irrationality with empirical evidence anyway.
1 comment:
OK, I know it's been over 2 years & probably no one else will read this, but it's been gnawing at me this whole time.
First off, not that it validates or invalidates his assessment, but Al Franken is hardly a "fair and balanced" source either. The title of a previous book of his, _Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot..._, makes his bias clear enough. But, as a comedian and now politician, he is hardly expected to conform to any standards of journalistic integrity. So I digress...
I could spend pages on the subject of news & politics and their usage of polls, surveys, studies, statistics, etc. to present "truth," so I'll gloss over that for now, other than to say that the UofM (less than 5 miles from D.C.) study may not necessarily have been an unbiased one. I read through the relevant pages of the study, and it makes me wonder if the misinformation surveyed was largely or exclusively that which Fox News was accused of promulgating. Nearly all the issues were ones that were beneficial to Democrats and/or detrimental to Republican--except the one where the stats skewed the other way! How about a question as to who deserves credit for the troop drawdown in Iraq? (It was negotiated by Bush, even though it was implemented on Obama's watch.) Not to mention that a person having misinformation is not proof positive of Fox deliberately misleading it's viewers.
The only thing the study shows definitively is that there is a disturbing amount of misinformed survey takers. (Incidentally, a recent Pew Research study concluded that MSNBC is a far more biased news source than Fox.)
In the case of a Fox story quoting The Onion, I'll admit that's a pretty embarrassing mistake given The Onion's longevity and reputation. But there's hardly a lack examples of poor journalism in the media. Perhaps the most famous example came to fall on Dan Rather for the documents regarding George W. Bush's military service. Journalists, commentators, pundits, and public officials across the spectrum have been duped by forgeries, falsehoods and "photoshops," as well as outright parodies. Makes me wonder if "independently verified" is concept taught in journalism classes these days.
Is Fox News "fair?" Well, let's try an example. Is the subject (person) of an issue/controversy treated with equal scrutiny whether Republican or Democrat, male or female, White, Black, Latino, Asian, etc.? I think Fox does a better job of it than other mainstream outlets.
Are they "balanced?" They may have tried to be, as Alan Colmes once shared a show with Sean Hannity. But ultimately, their primary audience is conservative/libertarian, so while they may not necessarily be "balanced," I think it's a fair assessment that they're balanc_ing_ their competition.
Personally, I trust Fox News more than its competitors, insomuch that I trust the commentators and personalities that I think share my values. (Disclosure: I hardly watch TV, period. I get most of my news online from sources I trust.)
On the other hand, programming on the Fox broadcast network runs quite a bit of programming that is antithetical to conservatism. And I've seen Rupert Murdoch make a number of anti-gun comments in recent months. Which makes me think that the Fox "Empire" is first and foremost a capitalist one, primarily interested in the environment conservatism provides for them to thrive.
So I trust Rupert Murdoch, as the saying goes, about as far as I can throw him. (But I do give him credit for finding a niche market with a huge void and filling it.)
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