User:GRuban/RFC: Fox News (news): politics & science


 * 1) headline was, "Clinton campaign paid to 'infiltrate' Trump Tower, White House servers to link Trump to Russia, Durham finds.", body says "First on Fox: Lawyers for the Clinton campaign paid a technology company to "infiltrate" servers belonging to Trump Tower, and later the White House, in order to establish an "inference" and "narrative" to bring to government agencies linking Donald Trump to Russia, a filing from Special Counsel John Durham found.. - see fact check here Special Counsel Did NOT Say Clinton Paid Tech Boss To 'Infiltrate' Trump Tower And White House Servers "The indictment filed by Durham charges Sussman with lying, but not actual infiltration of private Trump servers and does not mention White House servers at all"
 * And that fact check comes from Lead Stories, which we don't have an article on, because it's a fairly obscure site. Let's see what the major sources have to say about it. CNN: "Special counsel Durham alleges Clinton campaign lawyer used data to raise suspicions about Trump" "Special counsel John Durham accused a lawyer for the Democrats of sharing with the CIA in 2017 internet data purported to show Russian-made phones being used in the vicinity of the White House complex, as part of a broader effort to raise the intelligence community's suspicions of Donald Trump's ties to Russia shortly after he took office. The accusation -- which Durham couched in vague, technical language in a court filing late Friday -- has been seized upon by Trump and his supporters"; The Independent "Did the Clinton campaign ‘infiltrate’ Trump Tower and White House servers?" "The tale recounted by Mr Durham — a complicated spying operation conducted at the behest of a presidential candidate, stretching over a period of years — would make a compelling storyline if it were remotely true. But according to experts, it’s not." In other words, The Independent says that what Durham said is false - but he did say it. CNN says that what Durham said is so complex that it's understandable that journalists got confused. Clearly the journalists from the Independent did. So is this a shining example of Fox truthfulness and veracity? No. But neither is it sufficient cause to ban them for most political work. --GRuban (talk) 15:00, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) headline was "Fauci dismisses study on delta efficacy between Moderna, Pfizer as guide for booster shots", body says "Dr. Anthony Fauci has dismissed a study that deemed the Moderna vaccine as more effective than the Pfizer one against the COVID-19 delta variant."  Fact-checked by PolitiFact: Fauci didn’t doubt vaccine study; he cautioned against using it for choosing a booster FALSE
 * Well, yeah. If someone "cautions against using a study for choosing a booster", he is "dismissing the study as a guide for booster shots". That's what the words mean. In this case the headline is strictly correct. The quote from the article is stronger than that, but it's taken out of context, the rest of the article makes it clear in which sense Fauci is dismissing the study. --GRuban (talk) 15:04, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
 * 1) 2 articles Lockdowns only reduced COVID-19 death rate by .2%, study finds: 'Lockdowns should be rejected out of hand' CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo completely avoid Johns Hopkins study finding COVID lockdowns ineffective Fact check by Politifact: "The working paper is not a peer-reviewed scientific study, and its authors are not medical or public health researchers," Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told PolitiFact Published research contradicts findings Methodological issues
 * Again, let's see what our other sources say. "A Johns Hopkins study says 'ill-founded' COVID lockdowns did more harm than good" that's WUSF (FM), which is National Public Radio, "generally reliable for news and statements of fact".
 * 1) Coverage about the Steele Dossier and the John Durham/Sussman investigation Headline was "10 times the media declared the discredited Steele dossier was not 'disproven'", body says: Yet the standard for left-leaning media for years on the Russia-related material was it could hold up to scrutiny because it had not been specifically discredited, a logical fallacy known as an appeal to ignorance. Headline was "Despite acquittal, Durham trial of Sussmann added to evidence Clinton campaign plotted to tie Trump to Russia", body says: The dossier has now been largely discredited.  Lots of media-bashing and litigating the Durham case. According to mainstream sources, some parts of the Steele dossier were corroborated
 * 2) headline was "What many are missing about the infamous 'dossier' amid Russia probe", body says "Hunter Biden, who famously had his scandalous laptop dismissed by much of the media in the run-up to the 2020 election" (really? RS say that it was correctly dismissed when only NY Post could corroborate the story - giving cover to bad journalism practices) Coverage on Hunter Biden laptop controversy : basically tabloid style media-bashing, not labelled as opinion but claims uncritically that there is a huge story which has been dismissed and debunked by mainstream sources, and said not to relate to Joe Biden at all. Essentially a right-wing talking point. See related Vanity Fair piece