Powerful propaganda can divide the world.

[kentuck]

FOX News was never meant to "report the news". They were created to counter "mainstream" news and to offer entertainment to its viewers.

Unfortunately, in their desire to be "fair and balanced", they came to believe that they had to report the exact opposite of what the "liberal" media reported. Over time, that had a very corrosive effect on our democracy.

A democracy depends on some sort of consensus, in order to thrive and survive. If a democracy is divided, it is only a matter of time until it disintegrates and falls apart. FOX News has been more instrumental in creating the present political climate in this country than anyone. We are a very divided democracy.

Perhaps that was not their intent? Regardless, that is the result of their divisive propaganda.

(There is a problem when FOX refuses to report on the bombshell report, of all the numerous books and witnesses that are exposing the threat to us all)

[NJCher]

1. to add to that

They inspired competitors, such as OAN, who--to survive and make $$--lie even bigger and better than Fox News! They lie so prolifically that another one of the rw's inspirations, Newsmax, can be credited with discouraging more people than Fox News to take the vaccine. Here's a headline/story on Yahoo that appeared 7/12:

Newsmax viewers are nearly twice as likely to refuse the vaccine than Fox News watchers, new poll finds:

snip

--A recent survey on news consumption found differences in vaccine hesitancy among conservatives.

--Newsmax and OAN viewers were twice as likely as Fox News's audience to refuse the COVID-19 vaccine.

--Vaccine hesitancy remains a major challenge to the Biden administration.

snip

Here's another snip from the same story:

Drawing on the institute's past surveys and ones from other pollsters in the space, Jackson explained how Fox News is no longer the consensus choice for conservative respondents with the most extreme views.

The institute's polling found a shift that began in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when Newsmax and OAN were much more willing to run with former President Donald Trump's lies about it being stolen than most Fox News hosts were.


snip

What makes this even worse that in a NY Times interview, the president of OAN admitted to knowing he was spreading lies but said he needed to do so to keep his operation running and to get Fox viewers to come to them.


https://news.yahoo.com/newsmax-viewers-nearly-twice-likely-210814836.html
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The story states that vaccine hesitancy is a challenge for Biden. The root cause of this "hesitancy" is Fox News, OAN, Newsmax, and other r-w outlets.

These people need to be accused and maybe even tried for treason because that is what they are doing.

What constitutes treason in the U.S.?

snip

In United States law, treason is the crime of a citizen of the United States betraying his or her country. The crime of treason is often described as giving "aid and comfort" to enemies either on U.S. or foreign soil; it is an act punishable by death.

[Johnny2X2X]

2. You give FOX too much credit

They had no desire to be "fair and balanced". In fact, "Fair and Balanced" was their first piece of very powerful propaganda. Now Newsmax and OAN took it way further than FOX, but that doesn't discount the damage FOX has done to our democracy.

[kentuck]

3. I agree that "fair and balanced" was their first piece of powerful propaganda..

But, without FOX, there would be no OAN or Newsmax. They have only handed off the baton. FOX is the root of the problem.

[Klaralven]

4. Fox identified an audience and programmed to it.

With the rise of competing all-day cable news channels, objective journalism could not secure an audience. This led to the rise of advocacy journalism, with various channels taking a political point of view.

This may have been more natural for Fox than others, since Murdoch was more familiar with the British press environment where newspapers were more partisan. Only a few US cities had competing dailies by 2000. NYC was an exception with the Times, Daily News and Post.