This is not true. Fox News is a cable channel and is not licensed by the FCC. You should sue whoever told you differently.
So, we have here a story that, even if we take it at face value, is comparing viewers of one Fox News show to viewers of another Fox News show. Right from the start, this can’t be used to show that Fox News is bad: It could just as well be interpreted to mean that Fox News host Tucker Carlson is doing a really good job.
And that’s even if we take the study at face value. The only possible confounding variable they can think of is sunset times? Really? How about average age of the viewers, urban vs. rural, male vs. female, education level, economic status?
Indeed. And back in the day when they respected that.
We know that free speech is not a catch-all blanket to say whatever you want (see slander/libel, incitement to violence and so on).
I do not think it is amiss to demand something more from mega-media when it comes to informing the public. They have a special role in society and I think the citizens are well within their right to demand their news sources relay an objective truth as near as possible.
It may seem crazy but other countries manage this and still have free speech (see: Canada).
I am hard pressed to defend “free speech” when it costs thousands of lives. All we need to demand is honest reporting about the illness and not politically motivated/business motivated wrong information.
I have no desire to trash free speech. I do have a desire for more accountability for what you say/publish.
I am pretty familiar with the University of Chicago. One of the best universities on the planet (say top ten(ish)).
If you think their methodology is so fucked…well go for it. Take down the institution or, at least, get them to disown these researchers as hacks.
If you’ve got the evidence. Make a name for yourself spanking the University of Chicago for allowing crap research.
Yes and no:
The Fox Broadcasting Company is an over-the-air television network licensed by the FCC. This is the station where you find programming such as “The Simpsons. The Fox News Network is a cable news channel. The latter is where you’d find programming such as “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity.” While the FCC licenses and regulates over-the-air broadcasts, it has no authority over cable news channels.
Fox has both broadcast and cable news shows. They can and do lie their asses off on the cable. They do that same for broadcast, but there they can be sanctioned.
So either you think Fox should be sanctioned because of the Simpsons’ lies, or they should be punished for something said on another channel?
The Trump supporting Faux News Fool at work almost adversarially refuses to respect social distancing guidelines.
They lie on their broadcast channel as well.
If Republicans (the subset that worships Fox News, or at least prefers Hannity over Carlson) accepted the word of their Masters and engaged in risky lifestyle decisions that far smarter Democrats avoided, then those Republicans should logically experience higher rates of coronavirus infection and death. After all, recent measles outbreaks have shown that most cases occurred among unvaccinated children, whose parents made risky lifestyle decisions for them.
I don’t think the intrepid researchers cited in the OP have quite triangulated the evidence to back their claims, despite a “plausibly orthogonal” mindset.
Show me where the lines can reconnect
And I will parallelogram you to the ground
- The Minus Five
This sounds a bit argument-from-authorityish. Research (using the term loosely in this case) stands on its own merits.
The University of Chicago has been embarrassed before by research reinforcing a particular mindset.
You’re assuming that some political advisors and pundits are not themselves pathogens.
Fox or any other US network is not licensed; individual over-the-air broadcast outlets are licensed, revocable for failing to abide by FCC rules. WFUX-TV can be sanctioned - Fox can’t - but WFUX-TV will likely get away with almost any shoddy crap because “public interest” guidelines are no longer enforced.
FCC does have jurisdiction over all wireless or wired communications in the US, but mostly technically, not for content. Any commercial device capable of generating EMF must meet technical requirements - see notes stuck on TV remotes, phones, fans, etc. But FCC doesn’t care if you mutter threats or obscenities on your iPhone or podcast.
Would that it were so. But CV-19 in the US still has a reproduction rate in excess of 1 - that is to say, each person infected with CV-19 infects more than one other person besides themselves. And those who refuse to practice basic protective measures will infect more people than those who don’t. So the idiots who are influenced by Fox are a danger not only to themselves but, to a greater degree, to their families, friends, co-wokers, neighbours and the people they encounter in daily life. And there is no reason to expect them to be Foxists as well.
One bad study is not going to take down a university or otherwise there would be no universities.
If the study is pristine and everything is perfect with the various regression and there are no Everest regressions, the study says nothing about Fox News as an organization because it does not compare viewers with a control group only viewers of two shows on the network. As someone who like Carlson more than Hannity it makes sense to me that viewers of his show are better informed.
However, since Fox News viewers are better informed than the general public it would not surprise me if Hannity viewers were more likely to be cautious than nonFox news viewers. This study did not examine that, so people are leaping to a conclusion for a question that this study did not ask.
nm, misread quote.
Lest anyone else be tempted to waste a click on this claim, it’s a 2010 report in which “better informed” was based on correct answers to 4 questions.
31% of Hannity viewers got all answers correct,
30% of Maddow viewers,
29% of O’Reilly viewers.
23% of Glen Beck viewers.
Among more general categories,
51% of Wall St. Journal readers got all answers correct,
42% of NY Times readers,
32% of NPR viewers,
22% of USA Today readers,
20% of Fox News viewers.
Yes, I suppose the numbers might be worked to support puddleglum’s claim … especially if the location of that volcano is of key importance in American civics.
*That *became a market problem ever since the “fairness doctrine” went into the bin (which was *also *well before Citizens United) which seems to be what you really are seeking to reestablish (and you are by no means alone!) not just for broadcast but for electronic Big Media in general.
(BTW print journalism historically could be one-sided partisan all along as long as not outright libel or incitation.)
But yes, citizens should seek to hold their media accountable. Either in the market or in court. Liberty after all is not unfettered license. That the newscaster will raise a Freedom of Press defense does not mean that they will automatically succeed. Now, sure, it’s tough, but it should be.
So ISTM the argument becomes if things are so far much worse and the stakes are so far higher that it requires making it easier to challenge or penalize a false or bad-faith publication. OTOH remember it was the current WH occupant who in his campaign spoke of relaxing the libel laws so I have my reservations of what group of society is the one who stands more ready to hit the courts to make one outlet or another shut up.
I read through your link and found nothing to support your assertion that fox news viewers are better informed. I did a control+f search on your link for the word “informed” and got 0 hits. Are you referring to something specific on that page, or are you just not very well informed?
Yall fell for the same trap I did, which is why I quickly revised my earlier post.
He’s right. Reread the studies, or just glance over the charts. The general population is the one in red. Fox news is better than the general population, but much worse than almost any other outlet. He only made the claim that fox was better than the general population, and that much is true.
Apparently, most of the population consumes no news at all.
And what, exactly, is your cause of action? What are the elements of that claim, and how will you prove them? Or are you just hand waving actual legal requirements the same way you handwave the First Amendment?
Well the Mayor of New York did tell his subjects to go out and mingle with the masses in order to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Maybe he should have checked with Carlson first.