An example of Fox News' Biased coverage
By Jason Schultz
So I'm in the D.C. Airport, waiting for my flight home on JetBlue, and I'm strolling down the terminal and what do I see? An entire booth for "Fox News" selling magazines, candy bars, and books. Oh, and with about six different flat panel TVs shouting today's coverage at you.
Among today's top stories, a new "Fox News Poll" that says 33% of those surveyed think the media is too easy on Kerry and 42% think the media is too tough on Bush. [Of course, if it were limited to FoxNews coverage, you'd probably see dramatically different numbers in the opposite direction.]
But let's just look at the numbers they've given us. 33% think the media is too easy on Kerry. That means 66% (or 2/3rds) think the media is fair or too tough on Kerry, right? Isn't that the real story? I mean, 2/3rds is the percentage of Congress it takes to override a Presidential Veto for god sakes. Winning an election with 66% of the vote is a landslide. Yet Fox switches the numbers so that they can run the tagline "too easy on Kerry" across the bottom of your screen every twelve seconds. This is marketing, not media. And it's certainly not objective news reporting.
Same goes for being too tough on Bush. 42% think yes, but 58% think no. That means a clear majority of Americans think the media is doing a damn fine job of putting GW in the hotseat, or better yet, should turn up the heat even higher. That's the story, folks. GW deserves the heat he's getting, says America. Fox may wish to spin a different message to its viewers but the numbers it uses betray its agenda. I mean, would Fox have run the headline "33% think war is wrong" on the day we invaded Iraq? I think not.
Update:Rather than force everyone to read through the comments and trackbacks, I thought I'd clarify something up top here. I'm not saying Fox is lying about the stats or that the stats that they ran aren't relevant. What I'm saying is that majorities matter in polls. If 51%+ had said the media was too tough on Bush, then I couldn't complain if Fox had run that headline because at least then it stood for what "most Americans" thought collectively and could arguably be a concensus. Here, though, none of the polls revealed a majority. Therefore, the polls are inconclusive at best about what American really thinks overall and at worst, the headlines obscure the majority's feelings by focusing on the plurality. To me, a plurality means we don't have a strong opinion as a nation. Like if 45% will vote for Bush and 46% will vote for Kerry. What this tells me is that neither has the true majority. So when I saw numbers as low as 33%, it just struck me how silly it seemed that Fox ran the statement "too easy on Kerry" as a tagline when such a number was so inconclusive. To me it would be like running "10% willing to vote for Mickey Mouse" and somehow thinking that was politically significant.
[Source: http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/05/an_example_of_f.html]
So I'm in the D.C. Airport, waiting for my flight home on JetBlue, and I'm strolling down the terminal and what do I see? An entire booth for "Fox News" selling magazines, candy bars, and books. Oh, and with about six different flat panel TVs shouting today's coverage at you.
Among today's top stories, a new "Fox News Poll" that says 33% of those surveyed think the media is too easy on Kerry and 42% think the media is too tough on Bush. [Of course, if it were limited to FoxNews coverage, you'd probably see dramatically different numbers in the opposite direction.]
But let's just look at the numbers they've given us. 33% think the media is too easy on Kerry. That means 66% (or 2/3rds) think the media is fair or too tough on Kerry, right? Isn't that the real story? I mean, 2/3rds is the percentage of Congress it takes to override a Presidential Veto for god sakes. Winning an election with 66% of the vote is a landslide. Yet Fox switches the numbers so that they can run the tagline "too easy on Kerry" across the bottom of your screen every twelve seconds. This is marketing, not media. And it's certainly not objective news reporting.
Same goes for being too tough on Bush. 42% think yes, but 58% think no. That means a clear majority of Americans think the media is doing a damn fine job of putting GW in the hotseat, or better yet, should turn up the heat even higher. That's the story, folks. GW deserves the heat he's getting, says America. Fox may wish to spin a different message to its viewers but the numbers it uses betray its agenda. I mean, would Fox have run the headline "33% think war is wrong" on the day we invaded Iraq? I think not.
Update:Rather than force everyone to read through the comments and trackbacks, I thought I'd clarify something up top here. I'm not saying Fox is lying about the stats or that the stats that they ran aren't relevant. What I'm saying is that majorities matter in polls. If 51%+ had said the media was too tough on Bush, then I couldn't complain if Fox had run that headline because at least then it stood for what "most Americans" thought collectively and could arguably be a concensus. Here, though, none of the polls revealed a majority. Therefore, the polls are inconclusive at best about what American really thinks overall and at worst, the headlines obscure the majority's feelings by focusing on the plurality. To me, a plurality means we don't have a strong opinion as a nation. Like if 45% will vote for Bush and 46% will vote for Kerry. What this tells me is that neither has the true majority. So when I saw numbers as low as 33%, it just struck me how silly it seemed that Fox ran the statement "too easy on Kerry" as a tagline when such a number was so inconclusive. To me it would be like running "10% willing to vote for Mickey Mouse" and somehow thinking that was politically significant.
[Source: http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2004/05/an_example_of_f.html]