How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics

Here's an interesting paper by Bruce Bartlett on Fox news and media deception. Lots of good data, too much to get in to in this one post, but here is a sampling of what to expect. The list bellow contains popular misconceptions and shows by how much more likely these misconceptions are among Fox viewers than among the general public.

Bartlett also catalogs policies and techniques specifically designed to mislead and anger the viewers. Well worth a read if you care about an informed public, capable of engaging in active citizenship.

Download the paper here.

Cue the usual "I don't watch Fox and I don't know anyone who does and I don't understand why libruls are so obsessed with it."

Quite likely, but as I indicated in the OP, people who care about an informed public, capable of engaging in active citizenship should care quite a bit about this.

There's a segment of the population that doesn't want their fellow citizens to be well informed, whether it's by news media or by the advantage of having good nurture and good education. They recognize their own mediocrity and need to kick the ladder out from under anyone they feel is gaining on them.

So, basically Eric Cartman cloned a few million times.

Everyone sane already recognises that Fox is the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. The question is, what is to be done?

Some people don't seem to realize he's a parody. They see him as a role model.

I will read that when I get home this evening but it isn't surprising to anyone who has been paying attention for the last 20 years. Fox does nothing but lie and misinformation people, it was designed to be hyper partisan propaganda deguised as news.

It was originally thought up in the Nixon white house and was specifically called a pro-white house (meaning Nixon white house) propaganda outlet. They even openly admitted in court that they routinely lie and that they have a right to lie and call it news. Personally, I think that court ruling was completely bullshit, yes, fox has a right to lie but they should not be allowed to call it news. News implies truth and factual content so there should be legally enforceable standards for truth and accuracy in news using public air waves just like Canada has and the US used to have.

Its a generational problem - one that will solve itself. Half of Fox News viewers are 68 or older. That combined with the declining relevancy of cable news in general will mean in 20 years it won't have much of an impact.

Change the channel! It's not like North Korea, we have a choice, so guarantee nobody's TV is stuck in FOXNEWS despite what the liberals seem to think. Also be aware that what the liberal media will not cover pretty much matches any spin FOX might apply, so it's a wash IMO.

That isn't the point, though. It's that blatant lies are being passed off as fact, and I'm under no illusions that the other networks would do (and likely have at points) the same thing when the pendulum swings the other way. That should be nipped in the bud, and quickly.

Than, and let 'em die off as Demiurge said.

It is very difficult to obtain a reasonable view of the world from popular media in the US. That is a serious problem, Fox News just being the most egregious example. "You don't have to watch" is a poor solution.

What Anna said. It's the fact that the people who watch FOX exclusively have convinced themselves that "the MSM" (of which, in their minds, FOX is apparently not a part) is lying to them and only FOX will tell them "the Truth," whether it's about that Muslim Kenyan in the White House or the "religion of global warming" perpetrated by them thar scientists.

These people don't need Kim Jong Un to convince them of anything. They read the Enquirer and the Star. They know the Gubmint covered up what really happened in Area 51.

They vote (some of them). They home-school their kids. They think Ted Nugent is a political pundit. They contribute to the dumbing down of America.

It's not a solution at all. The problem isn't the person with the critical skills to make a change the channel decision. It's the people who don't realize the deception and lap it right up. That's the problem and it's why we have such stupidity masquerading as political debate.

Damn they still haven't run out of super broad brushes down at your local home depot? So the only conservatives you know about are the ones you conjure up in your overly active stereotyping imagination? I figured as much.

There are also the ones who can't refute my post but who'd rather .

I eagerly await a refutation by any FOX viewer here.

Oh, right. No one here watches FOX.

Nobody here watches Fox, nobody here ever supported the Iraq war, and as we learned yesterday, nobody here ever compared guns to simple tools.

Well, we've got a poster here with an engineering degree who's managed to convince himself that climate change is some vast librul conspiracy, and another poster who'll tell you that the fact that Oklahoma is currently more seismically active than California has nothing to do with fracking, nope, nope, nope.

No confirmation bias there at all. Clearly they get their news from multiple sources, and they'll pop in here any minute to help oldfella out.

It seems to me to be much more the case that the Republican Party is the political wing of FOX "News." The "deciders" who set the agenda of the joint operation don't lie within the traditional Party hierarchy so much as they are Murdoch and his lackeys. We haven't had to live through a half-dozen committees investigating the trivia of Benghazi because of anything other than FOX "News" giving Benghazi the 24/7 treatment.

To the extent that other people have influence over the Republican agenda, they're also people outside the formal Republican party hierarchy--i.e. the Kochs, Adelson, etc.

It's always funny to hear Americans bicker about their media.

Guys, it's all terrible. Seriously. You are light years behind the rest of the world.

Sure I'll pick apart what you said but I can only speak for myself - my brush isn't quite as wide as yours
o I don't think Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim and if he is I don't care. I think the "natural born citizen" rule should be waived
o global warming could be real but it's a moot point - climate change is cyclic and we are between ice ages so it won't get too warm, and if it does then humans adapt or die
o I do not read tabloids other than the covers when I am in line at the store
o I vote often and enthusiastically - I'll give you one guess which party gets priority
o I don't believe in home schooling - I believe public schools have more to teach than most kids will ever care to learn, so the problem isn't the schools. Personal/family responsibility is awesome!
o Ted Nugent was (I think) a draft dodger thus his political viewpoints don't hold much water. I will listen to his hunting advice, and he does great things to help kids get involved in the outdoors, so I will give credit where credit is due

The climate is always changing, often dramatically, and Oklahoma and Texas are picking up stresses that are normally applied along New Madrid. It's tectonics.

Okay, I apologize for lumping you in with the typical FOX viewer, but I recall your complaining that CNN was the only news source allowed on base, and it made me I wonder why you need a constant stream of news (which is mostly just the same few stories recycled all day) and why you watch FOX.

how can a tv station that reaches 3 million at most affect 300 million people?

What do you propose?

When people start talking about "solutions" to speech, I start to get nervous.

Fox would not have prospered if it was not filling a previously underserved market in the U.S.

One can infer that lots of conservatives were alienated by mainstream media for what they perceived as left wing bias.

What Dayton said. American media leans considerably to the left. Fox is the exception. So if you watch an hour of Fox followed by an hour of CNN, you get a fairly balanced view. Assuming they're covering the same stories, of course.

Myself, I watch Fox, CNN, MSNBC (I like Rachel Maddow), Al Jazeera America, BBC world news, and sometimes Moscow Evening News.

Mainstream media does not and cannot "lean to the left". Their primary customer is advertisers - that is to say, large corporations. So they do what suits those. It is a fallacy to think that they exist to serve their viewers.

People who think that Fox News simply provide a balance have swallowed their propaganda whole.