A new report released Monday from Media Matters For Americafound that not a single day went by in the first four months of 2019 when the "hard news" arm of Fox News didn't lie to its audience.
Fox has long assured viewers and advertisers that the network's news and opinion wings are fundamentally different. But, as Media Matters president Angelo Carusone explained in a statement, that isn't really based in facts.
"Fox News likes to tout the 'hard news' side of its operation, setting up a false distinction between its right-wing prime-time hosts and its news anchors," said Carusone. "The network pushes this fictional division as a defense against those who flag the propaganda, lies, conspiracy theories, and bigotry pervading the network."
Rather, as Carusone's team found, the channel's news nachors spread the same misinformation as its more opinionated primetime hosts--people like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson.
"Both the 'news' side and the 'opinion' side are cogs in the same propaganda machine," Carusone said. "And both spread lies and misinformation daily with the same motive."
"There wasn't a single day in which these 'news' shows didn't air misinformation or lies," said Media Matters editor Cristina Lopez G. "Not one day."
The report is a direct response to the network's efforts to push back against a Media Matters led boycott movement targeting the network. Fox argues that the differences between its two arms should allow advertisers to put commercials on during news broadcasts--even if they don't like the controversial and counterfactual programming on the nighttime opinion shows.
"Quarantining your ads to only a small subset of programs will not insulate your brand from public rebuke when Fox News' next controversy strikes," said Carusone.
"The network as a whole is the problem," he added, "not merely a few prime-time hosts."
Read the full report below:
The Fox "News" Lie by on Scribd
