I’m a big believer in facts. Numbers matter but context matters just as much. It seems to be a common tactic these days for people to throw out a number and then try to twist it to fit an ideal. While sometimes the confusion could be forgiven, when it is obvious the fact is presented after the ideal as validation, one should be suspect. lol
Point and case, I got into a debate with a conservative person the other day over marriage rights. It was online and the topic diverged into a discussion about Fox News and said person’s argument, ‘if Fox news is so bad, why does it routinely rank very high in viewers?‘ Said person was quite smug and very matter-of-fact about how the ‘majority’ of Americans got there news from Fox.
No, no, and just no. The failure in logical reasoning here is the assumption it is a one or the other choice. It isn’t. The rest of us aren’t limited to just one other option. We have a plethora of outlets to get our daily consumption for what passes for news these days. The idea that Fox is somehow the voice of Americans due to a large viewing base is categorically false. What it does show is that the extremists have limited choices and Fox is pretty much it. Not surprising, said person then resorted to typical diversionary tactics to avoid further debate.
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On a side note, Fox news went to court in 2003 on whether it was required to report factual news. Fox won as the judge ruled there was no legal requirement for them to do so!
I’ll just let that sink in for a bit.
Because there is no actual law that requires news agencies to report factual news, they don’t have to? Where is the moral and ethical obligation? Concurrently, Fox has since gone from a reputable news agency to a propaganda arm for extremist views. Welcome to “murrica”.