User:François Robere/sandbox/Fox News

Fox News's Reliability
Looking at some of the uses of Fox News on Wikipedia, three patterns emerge: Fox is also mentioned (but not used) when it is itself the subject of discussion, eg. when Trump calls one of their shows.
 * 1) Fox is sometimes used for factual reports, where a less controversial source can be easily found (see "Green New Deal" example below)
 * 2) It is sometimes given as an example of a "bad" source that shouldn't be used
 * 3) It is sometimes used to establish the neutrality of controversial statements that are sourced from supposedly "leftist" sources ("So what if NYT reported it? Fox News reported it as well!")

These patterns suggest that editors are generally aware of the problematic nature of the network and are careful not to overuse it. However, as the last completed RfC on Fox dates back to 2010, its current status is unclear and often contentious.

Below you will find sources on Fox News's reliability. Both formulations contains roughly the same account, but in different styles. If you've any questions or suggestions, leave them on Talk. François Robere (talk) 09:47, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Fox News's reliability problem explained

 * 1) The talk shows are bad. This is something practically all sources and most Wikipedians agree on, so we won't delve into it. However, for some light entertainment see here.
 * 2) The news programs are shoddy. The news programs may be better than the talk shows, but they still have issues: they've been known to air baseless, inflammatory, or just plain ridiculous stories with no verification (often with belated retraction, if any),      their graphics department is completely off the mark, and their former head lied on air and pushed reporters to bias their reports, but was never disciplined for it - hardly what one would consider an acceptable standard for a news organization. What's more, Fox's reporters do an awful job of pushing back against the fallacies promote by their "talk show" colleagues, or even their guests: out of dozens (hundreds?) of reporters working at Fox, only Chris Wallace is known to still do this; others have either quit   or started playing patsy.  Other odd juxtapositions in the news department include co-hosting Fox's talk shows and the occasional tweet referencing Infowars.
 * 3) The commentary isn't commentary. More than any other network, Fox blurs the lines between "reporting" and "commentary", and between "commentary" and "advocacy". You know these discussions we keep having about "opinion vs. reporting"? They're off the mark. Fox's "talking heads" aren't about either - they're about advocacy. Commentary (also known as "opinions journalism") is a form of journalism; advocacy isn't. Thomas Friedman, Art Buchwald and Peggy Noonan all won Pulitzers for commentary; Tucker Carlson never has, and never will. The fact that we as a community can't make the conceptual distinction between Thomas Friedman and Tucker Carlson shows you how deep Fox's damage goes.
 * 4) The website is awful. Their website, which we currently treat as "reliable", has all the issues the network has: coverage bias, lack of editorial controls, belated retractions, tabloid-style articles, and more; and the same is true of their Facebook and Twitter presence.      This shouldn't come as a surprise, of course, given their recent "course correction" towards what one scholar called "a little Breitbart". In addition to their website and social network profiles, Fox also sends newsletters, like this one. What is it exactly? Is it news? Is it commentary? Is it advocacy? Compared with a similar newsletter sent by the New York Times on the same day, the difference is striking.
 * 5) Which leads to another, unexpected problem: say we have a reader of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who wants to follow up on our sources, for whatever reason (maybe they're a highschool student writing a paper?); they click on one of the links and reach this innocent-looking piece by Liam Quinn on Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal". They get just past the headline when they notice a couple of videos embedded within the article... They click "play", and without warning are assaulted by Brian Kilmeade's tirade against "social engineering" and "trains to Hawaii", and Andrew Puzder's attack on "socialist... programs just like they had in the Soviet Union". We could've used any of a number of sources on the subject,   but by using Fox we inadvertently led an innocent reader from this repository of vetted, verified and carefully balanced content, to the patent nonsense of Fox News's worst, with just one click.
 * 6) The network as a whole is biased. Part of our process of evaluating a source is checking where it was published: Was it in a peer-reviewed journal, or a blog? An unknown publisher, or a highly respected one? Looking at Fox from this perspective, it's hard to justify treating it as a "news publisher" at all: half of its airtime (and all of its prime time) is dedicated to fallacies and conspiracy theories,      and it doesn't enforce even minimal standards of journalistic integrity on its hosts. Add to that, the network is highly aligned with the Republican party and Trump's administration - much more so than any other network and any other administration in the past   - leading academics and critiques alike to state this news network isn't about news at all.      To quote Christopher Browning: "In Trump’s presidency, [propaganda has] effectively been privatized in the form of Fox News... Fox faithfully trumpets the “alternative facts” of the Trump version of events, and in turn Trump frequently finds inspiration for his tweets and fantasy-filled statements from his daily monitoring of Fox commentators and his late-night phone calls with Hannity. The result is the creation of a “Trump bubble” for his base to inhabit that is unrecognizable to viewers of PBS, CNN, and MSNBC and readers of The Washington Post and The New York Times." Keep in mind when reading this that, like Browning, most sources critical of the network don't make a clear distinction between its talk shows and news programs; the insistence of some Wikipedians that we should be making that distinction is, in a way, OR.
 * 7) Not all biases are obvious. Roger Ailes once said: "Bias can be a lot of different ways - story selection, story placement, story emphasis. There's a lot of ways you can create subtle bias." Of course, Ailes was defending Fox against accusations of bias, but he inadvertently gave us a guide to some of the ways Fox introduces it; these "invisible biases" are something Fox is heavily engaged in across all its venues, both online and offline.         By allowing the use of such a blatantly biased source, we're inviting unintentional WP:DUE violations and placing greater burdens on our editors to avoid them.
 * 8) It has real and damaging results. Fox News's viewers are less informed than those of other outlets    (according to one study, they're less informed than those who don't watch news at all), but its damage extends to other viewerships as well. And when all is said and done and it comes down to the polls, Fox's messaging can sway an electorate one way or the other.
 * 9) It's not going to change. And why would it? Fox is massive money maker,  with loyal viewership that guarantees it against outside influence.  As far as Fox is concerned, this is a winning formula.

Stuff only Fox does
Things you see across Fox (including its news division and website) that you don't see anywhere else. Claiming "others do it too" is perfectly legitimate, but please support it with evidence if you do:


 * 1) Network regularly engages in coverage bias
 * 2) Network regularly spreads conspiracy theories
 * 3) Shows repeatedly deny scientific consensus without justification
 * 4) Shows repeatedly present misleading graphics
 * 5) Anchors repeatedly present inflammatory or defamatory claims with no context, verification or request for comments; and when they retract the claim they often do so hastily, without apology or correction
 * 6) Network coordinates with the White House, with more than a dozen high ranking employees moving from one to the other
 * 7) Networks mixes advocacy with legitimate journalism in a manner that's indistinguishable to the casual observer
 * 8) Anchors substitute for hosts in questionable shows
 * 9) Reporters enable hosts who spread misinformation
 * 10) Reporters fail to challenge questionable and/or partisan sources
 * 11) Hosts refuse to allow criticism on their shows
 * 12) Network backs hosts who committed egregious violations of journalistic ethics
 * 13) Hosts regularly campaign with party nominees
 * 14) Head of News lies on air and pushes bias in reporting - and gets promoted
 * 15) Website downgrades front page stories because of traffic considerations
 * 16) Website "goes a little Breitbart"
 * 17) Network viewers end up being less informed than viewers of other networks, and even of non-viewers

What do the experts say?

 * 187 signatories of the Professors of Journalism open letter to Fox Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch: "Fox News has violated elementary canons of journalism. In so doing, it has contributed to the spread of a grave pandemic."
 * A. J. Bauer, Visiting Assistant Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU, contrasts “esteemed outlets like the New York Times” with “an outlet (Fox) with dubious ethical standards and loose commitments to empirical reality.”
 * Yochai Benkler, Law Professor at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University: “Fox’s most important role since the election has been to keep Trump supporters in line,” offering narratives of the "deep state", "immigrant invastion" and "the media as the enemy of the people". On the supposed "symmetric polarization" in media, Benkler says: “It’s not the right versus the left, it’s the right versus the rest.”
 * Christopher Browning, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: “In Trump’s presidency, [propaganda has] effectively been privatized in the form of Fox News... Fox faithfully trumpets the “alternative facts” of the Trump version of events, and in turn Trump frequently finds inspiration for his tweets and fantasy-filled statements from his daily monitoring of Fox commentators and his late-night phone calls with Hannity. The result is the creation of a "Trump bubble" for his base to inhabit that is unrecognizable to viewers of PBS, CNN, and MSNBC and readers of The Washington Post and The New York Times.”
 * Lauren Feldman, Associate Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University: “While MSNBC is certainly partisan and traffics in outrage and opinion, its reporting—even on its prime-time talk shows—has a much clearer relationship with facts than does coverage on Fox.”
 * Andy Guess, Assistant Professor of Politics and Public affairs at Princeton University: “There’s no doubt that primetime hosts on Fox News are increasingly comfortable trafficking in conspiracy theories and open appeals to nativism, which is a major difference from its liberal counterparts.”
 * Nicole Hemmer, Assistant Professor of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia: “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV... Fox is not just taking the temperature of the base—it’s raising the temperature. It’s a radicalization model. [For both Trump and Fox] fear is a business strategy—it keeps people watching.”
 * Daniel Kreiss, Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Media and Journalism: “Fox’s appeal lies in the network’s willingness to explicitly entwine reporting and opinion in the service of Republican, and white identity.”
 * Patrick C. Meirick, director of the Political Communication Center at the University of Oklahoma, states in a study of the "death panel" myth that “...rather than polarize perceptions as predicted, Fox News exposure contributed to a mainstreaming of (mistaken) beliefs.”
 * Reece Peck, Assistant Professor at the College of Staten Island - City University of New York, characterizes Fox as political, "comedically ridiculous" and "unprofessional".
 * Joe Peyronnin, Associate Professor of Journalism, Media Studies, and Public Relations at Hofstra University: “I’ve never seen anything like it before... It’s as if the President had his own press organization. It’s not healthy.” “No news channel reported on Obama being from Kenya more than Fox, and not being an American. No news channel more went after Obama’s transcript from Harvard or Occidental College. Part of mobilizing a voting populace is to scare the hell out of them... I heard things on Fox that I would never hear on any other channel.”
 * Jay Rosen, Associate Professor of Journalism at NYU and former member of the Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board: “We have to state it from both sides. There's been a merger between Fox News and the Trump government. The two objects have become one. It's true that Fox is a propaganda network. But it's also true that the Trump government is a cable channel. With nukes.”
 * Steven White, Assistant Prof. of Political Science at Syracuse University: “Political scientists are generally not massive Fox News fans, but in our efforts to come across as relatively unbiased, I actually think we downplay the extent to which it is a force for the absolute worst impulses of racism, illiberalism, and extremism in American society.”


 * Jen Psaki, former White House Communications Director: “The peddling of dangerous conspiracy theories is not just a Chris Farrell or a Lou Dobbs problem. This is a Fox in the age of President Donald Trump problem... And it is one that could not only do lasting damage to the legitimacy of media in the US, but could also spur more anger, division and even violence in the short term.”
 * Blair Levin, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former FCC chief of staff: “Fox’s great insight wasn’t necessarily that there was a great desire for a conservative point of view... The genius was seeing that there’s an attraction to fear-based, anger-based politics that has to do with class and race... Fox News’ fundamental business model is driving fear.”
 * Jerry Taylor, President of the Niskanen Center: “In a hypothetical world without Fox News, if President Trump were to be hit hard by the Mueller report, it would be the end of him. But, with Fox News covering his back with the Republican base, he has a fighting chance, because he has something no other President in American history has ever had at his disposal—a servile propaganda operation.”


 * Carl Cameron, former Fox News Chief Political Correspondent: “Fox News' 24 hour news wheel is down to really the Bret Baier show... Most of the rest is predominantly talk [that is] predominantly supportive of a president who is violating all kinds of American values, laws, rules, precedents, etc., etc., and the American people need to hear that... otherwise, it's just propaganda...”
 * Alisyn Camerota, former Fox News host: “When I worked at Fox, sharia law was one of their favorite bogeymen. Roger Ailes was very exercised about sharia law, and so we did a lot of segments on sharia law. None of them were fact-based or they didn’t – there was no emphasis on them being fact based.”
 * Bill Kristol, former editor of The Weekly Standard: “It’s changed a lot. Before, it was conservative, but it wasn’t crazy. Now it’s just propaganda.”
 * Ralph Peters, former Fox News analyst: “In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration...[Fox News anchors] dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the F.B.I., the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller.”
 * Simon Rosenberg, former Fox News commentator: “It was always clear that this wasn’t just another news organization, but when Ailes departed, and Trump was elected, the network changed. They became more combative, and started treating me like an enemy, not an opponent... It’s as if the on-air talent at Fox now have two masters—the White House and the audience. [Because of this] Fox is no longer conservative—it’s anti-democratic.”
 * Jennifer Rubin, political commentator at the Washington Post: “[Fox is] simply a mouthpiece for the President, repeating what the President says, no matter how false or contradictory.”
 * Greg Sargent, political commentator at the Washington Post: “Fox News is fundamentally in the business of spreading disinformation, as opposed to conservative reportage.”
 * Andrew Sullivan, political commentator at The Atlantic: “The point is surely that the only "liberals" allowed on Fox News are the ones designed to buttress the "conservative" worldview... Just as important [and] what's needed on Fox - and what you'll never see - is solid conservative attacks on and critiques of other conservatives, on matters of principle or policy. That's the difference between an opinion channel and a propaganda channel.”
 * Margaret Sullivan, media columnist at the Washington Post: “Everyone ought to see [Fox News] for what it is: Not a normal news organization with inevitable screw-ups, flaws and commercial interests, which sometimes fail to serve the public interest. But a shameless propaganda outfit, which makes billions of dollars a year as it chips away at the core democratic values we ought to hold dear: truth, accountability and the rule of law.”


 * Julie Roginsky, Democratic strategist and former Fox News contributor: “I think there are business interests the Murdochs (who own Fox News. -FR) have... [and] being on the side of the President - helping the President - helps their business interests. I think that's a business decision that they've made.”
 * Charlie Black, conservative lobbyist: “I know Roger Ailes was reviled, but he did produce debates of both sides. Now Fox is just Trump, Trump, Trump.”