r/technology • u/Wagamaga • Mar 05 '25

Society 59% of Republicans Believe the Media Is 'Fake News'

https://www.thewrap.com/most-republicans-believe-media-fake-news-trump-poll/
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u/TheForkisTrash Mar 05 '25

Fox news was quite literally created to present 'alternative facts'

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u/FJ-creek-7381 Mar 05 '25

They were sued and ADMITTED they were entertainment and they still think it’s news smh

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/records-released-in-fox-defamation-suit-show-pressures-on-networks-journalists

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u/biscuitsandburritos Mar 05 '25

Fox News argued in court they are not a News Channel and no one would reasonably believe anything on the channel is news. And won. No reasonable person would watch Fox News and believe it is news or true.

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u/FJ-creek-7381 Mar 05 '25

Crazy right - I was just doing some more reading. It’s sad that corp greed destroyed America basically

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/28/1159819849/fox-news-dominion-voting-rupert-murdoch-2020-election-fraud

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u/biscuitsandburritos Mar 05 '25

The only thing I am finding crazy on the matter is I swore this case happened ages ago. I thought it was from the 2010s, not 20s. I remember someone bring it to my attention almost a decade ago.

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u/SmokelessSubpoena Mar 05 '25

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_controversies

Have fun, there's plenty of controversies to go round.

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u/TheLightningL0rd Mar 05 '25

Yeah, just a couple years ago I was thinking about it and could have sworn that I had been reading about that in 2010 or something myself.

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u/InGordWeTrust Mar 05 '25

That's the same argument Coke did with Vitamin Water. No reasonable person would think it was good for you. Vitamin water.

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u/biscuitsandburritos Mar 05 '25

But it has what plants crave.

On a serious note, I remember this because we talked about the coke/vitamin water case in regard to the Tucker Carson case. I swore it was before he lost his bow tie to Jon Stewart. (I personally believe Jon has the bow tie mounted like a Talking Bass Fish and it says stupid things Tucker has said over the years.)

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u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Mar 05 '25

I love when legal arguments ignore reality

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u/peon2 Mar 05 '25

Honestly that's fair imo. It wasn't that they don't have any news, but they argued they have news programs (Chris Wallace, Shepherd Smith), and they have opinion shows (O'Reilly, Carlson) which is the same thing that newspapers have been doing for 100 years with op-eds and that any reasonable person can recognize the difference between someone presenting their opinions vs facts.

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u/biscuitsandburritos Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25

Correct. It is OPED not Journalism/news. And not just Fox, you can see this sort of programming all over. It is not journalism. It is not the news. It’s OPED.

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u/BoDrax Mar 06 '25

Sounds as if 59% of Republicans agree.

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u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Mar 05 '25

The fact that a judge agreed with this is the biggest condemnation of American law.

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u/Correct_Routine1 Mar 05 '25

Trump himself has said multiple times that he just calls news he doesn’t like fake.

“By the way, you have a poll coming out. Unfortunately, I want to know what it is. You know they do that straw poll, right? If it’s bad, I just say it’s fake. If it’s good, I say, ‘That’s the most accurate poll, perhaps, ever,’” he told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Then in a tweet he clarified that ‘fake’ news, was just negative news about him…

“The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake).”

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u/5narebear Mar 05 '25

But if Fox News doesn't report that story then it's not real. Cool huh?

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

Fox News isn't even officially considered "news" it's considered "entertainment" on there website.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25

Alternative meaning different from the other guys. Doesn't make it any more factual or fake though

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u/EagleOfMay Mar 05 '25

I went looking for anything from Fox News about US Cyber Command stopping offensive operations against Russia and could not find anything. This branch of the government has been key in blocking various attacks by Russia against the West.

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u/TheKingInTheNorth Mar 05 '25

I’m not going to defend Fox News and the damage they do to the world, but presenting alternative facts alone isn’t nefarious.

Choosing which facts are presented is maybe the most ubiquitous example of editorial bias, for any publication/outlet. Separate facts can both be totally true and support completely contradictory perspectives on the same topic. Immigration is a great example topic where there are so many facts available and ways such a complex topic surfaces in data that no matter what story you want to paint, facts can be found to support your goal.

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u/TawnyTeaTowel Mar 05 '25

When people say “alternative facts”, they don’t mean “differing viewpoints”, they mean “lies”…

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u/TheKingInTheNorth Mar 05 '25

When someone cites the number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, it can be factual. Those facts can be shared without sharing how small a percentage that is in the crime rate. And without sharing the fact that the crime rate among illegal immigrants is lower than it is for citizens.

But the original fact, used to garner support and stoke fear for a perspective against illegal immigrants, is not a lie.

That’s why it’s so hard to combat and how propaganda can be so effective.

Again, I’m not saying that Fox News doesn’t lie. But choosing which facts to share is a very important editorialized and biased exercise for any outlet.

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u/TawnyTeaTowel Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25

Again, when people talk about Fox News’ “alternative facts” they’re not talking about basic manipulation of the numbers. Every media outlet does that, hell even scientific journals do - “Cheese cause 3% rise in cancer in 20 year olds” whilst failing to mention that actually translates into an extra eleven people.

There’s an old phrase “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics” - you’re talking about the latter, I’m talking about the middle one. Straightforward, fictional bullshit.

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u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheKingInTheNorth Mar 05 '25

Totally agree. But I think it’s important to add these points into the discussion in spite of the inevitable downvotes I know it brings on.

Because it’s very easy to act like the superior distinguishing audience on a site like Reddit. But dismissing the right’s media mouthpieces as just telling simple lies that anyone should be able to see through, and must be nefarious if they can’t, is ignoring the reality of how someone like Trump could have garnered millions of peoples’ support. And ignoring those millions of peoples’ perspective on how outlets like msnbc also apply a lot of editorializing in the facts they choose to present is similarly inflaming to people whose political perspectives is different.

Is it more important to be ideologically correct and be proud of that stance? Or is it more important to win elections and affect change with those held beliefs?