Is Fox News good for America? | The Tylt

In an interview that made headlines, veteran journalist Ted Koppel told Fox News commentator Sean Hannity that he was "bad for America."

Others say Fox may indeed emphasize a conservative point of view, but in our hyper-liberal media environment, that's actually a breath of fresh air and necessary in order to provide balance.

Critics say it's not a matter of perspective or viewpoint: the network spreads lies and manipulates its audience, and has made a huge segment of the American public vulnerable to misleading propaganda. Studies show people who watch no news at all are better informed on the facts than Fox viewers.

 But Fox and hosts like Tucker Carlson say CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream media outlets are the ones hustling leftist propaganda:

"About the only people who deny widespread media bias these days are the people who are directly benefiting from it," Tucker said. "And that would include progressive activists posing as reporters, and the Democratic politicians whose water they carry."
Tucker noted a recent Harvard University study that found that 80 percent of the media's coverage of President Trump's first 100 days was negative.

Critics point to data as evidence that Fox's programming is actually dangerous. Studies show majorities of Fox viewers don't believe in global warming, think Barack Obama was born in Kenya, and believe in a host of other untruths about the economy, the Iraq War, the Affordable Healthcare Act, and myriad other issues.

It has been corroborated time and time again. The fact that Fox News is so blatantly dishonest, and the effects of that dishonesty have become ingrained in an electorate that has been purposefully deceived, needs to be made known to every American. Our democracy cannot function if voters are making choices based on lies. 

But for Fox viewers, the network is the one place they can go where they feel they will be told what's really happening.

Others say the left needs to get over its obsession with Fox. 

Ironically, these “Fox News Viewers Are Stupid!” stories are little more than a large and intense exercise in confirmation bias....The Left has learned over the years that winning debates is difficult but discrediting people and institutions is relatively easy. You point the finger and yell “racist!” or “stupid!” or “stupid racist!” long enough and loud enough and it will start to stick. And for a long time, the Left did not have to do very much debating, because there was no Fox News, no Rush Limbaugh et al., and no conservative alternatives online. Now there are.