Tonight I went to an Outfoxed showing that was sponsored by MoveOn.org’s political action group. It was a lot of fun, and very informative. I saw it the Campbell Community Center with about 300 other people, which I think was the largest group showing in the US. I knew that Fox was far to the right of all the other cable news shows, and being leftist their views always seemed very conservative to me, but I like to have hard numbers before I judge something like this. I know my views are not neutral. In fact that is what scares me, when I listen to something like AirAmerica, I know I am listening to something that is a source of commentary, not of news, but it seems a lot of people treat fox news as a legitimate news source. I think I would not really have a problem with them if they just admitted that they had a conservative bent.
So here are some facts that I just find truly terrifying. Apparently 83% of Fox’s guests on one their high profile shows are Republicans. One might be able to make argument that since the Republican's currently hold a majority in both houses of congress as well as possessing the presidency that there is a legitimate reason for there to be an imbalance, but that seems extreme. What was much more disturbing was the fact that on a number of purely factual issues (“Has the US found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?”) people who watched Fox News were 5 to 10 times more likely to get the answer wrong. I think that any news outlet that has that sort of statistic needs to look at their methods if their intention is really to present the news. Of course the evidence seems to be against that...
Posted by louis at July 19, 2004 12:26 AM | TrackBack