Fox News's appalling past 72 hours, analyzed

[Hermit-The-Prog]

A data analysis shows how Fox News spun the Mueller indictment and Florida shooting into a defense of the president.

By Alvin Chang

https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17027456/fox-news-mueller-indictment-trump

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The data paints a clear story of how damaging it is for a media outlet to prioritize its defense of the president. In the past 72 hours, Fox News:

Limited its coverage of what the indictment actually reveals: evidence of foreign organizations trying to undermine American democracy

Drastically reduced coverage of the Florida school shooting to push pundits onto TV to say this story actually vindicates President Trump, even though it does nothing of the sort

Used a detail of the school shooting to push the narrative that the FBI, and by extension the Muller investigation, is flawed — and gave cover to President Trump

It’s easy to just chalk all this up to Fox News being Fox News. But Fox News is the main source of news for 19 percent of 2016 voters, including 40 percent of Trump voters. There’s academic evidence that Fox News is more powerful than we ever imagined. It’s a network that allows conspiracy theorists to make hay out of baseless lies. And to top it all off, there is evidence that the hosts see their jobs as advising Trump — talking directly to him — and that Trump sees them as his main information source.

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