When I started C&L, one of the missions I undertook was to expose the tremendous amount of lies and propaganda spewed by the Fox News channel on a daily basis. At the time, Fox News was being criticized occasionally, but not with much verve or tenacity from most media outlets because they were still part of the beltway Villagers club. I can say now that the veil has been ripped off and everybody, even the Villagers know where Fox News stand, but it's still very helpful to see studies done on the topic of media accuracy. And the latest information is very damning to Roger Ailes and his pet project.
MSNBC and CNN have improved ever so slightly on our TV network scorecards, while Fox News has moved a touch in the opposite direction.
We last looked at our network scorecards, which examine all the claims made by pundits on air, in September. The scorecards measure statements made by a pundit or a host or paid contributor on a particular network. They do not include statements made by elected leaders, declared candidates or party officials.
So what’s the latest tally?
At Fox and Fox News, 10 percent of the claims we’ve rated have been True, 11 percent Mostly True, 18 percent Half True, 21 percent Mostly False, 31 percent False and nine percent Pants on Fire.
That means about 60 percent of the claims we’ve checked have been rated Mostly False or worse.
Only 21% of what is being said on Fox news is rated as true! If one were to show Fox News viewers these results I bet they would just call the information a liberal plot to smear conservatives and that's sad.
The question asked was: “Which of the following television news sources do you trust the most to provide accurate information about politics and current events?,” 25% said Fox News. Broadcast news came in second with 23%, CNN with 17%, public television with 12%, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart with 8% and MSNBC with a mere 5%.
More Americans trust the most untruthful news source. What does that say about our nation’s discourse?
According to the poll:
“The survey also found that there is no media source that has a political role on the center or left that is comparable to Fox’s on the right. As [the first chart] illustrates, while more than half of Republicans list Fox as a trusted news source, no other source comes close. … By contrast, there is no dominant trusted news source among Democrats or liberals.”
It seems liberals and Democrats are the only ones who are comfortable with getting out of their warped little bubble. The same cannot be or Fox News viewers. As John Cleese says:
“If you’re very, very stupid, how can you possibly realize that you’re very, very stupid? You’d have to be relatively intelligent to realize how stupid you are. This explains almost the entirety of Fox News.”
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