Fox News: 25 years of making everyone's lives progressively crappier [user poll included]
![Fox News: 25 years of making everyone's lives progressively crappier [user poll included]](https://thenewstalkers.com/discussion/image/discussion_image/56447/xxxlarge/_v=63f541634357129)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Fox News Channel has offered us oh so many ways to mark its 25th anniversary. How could we possibly count them? Creating a chronological list of its Achievements in Outrage would be a massive undertaking; someone else is welcome to it.
Retracing its history back to the start, when the late Roger Ailes launched the network with an array of opinion-based programming packaged to resemble news and calling it "fair and balanced," has been done. Citing poll data and statistics proving the extent to which the network's dedicated viewership is more misinformed than other news' outlets consumers would be similarly redundant.
Instead, let's simply pause for a moment and marvel at the spectacular impact a quarter of a century's worth of Fox News has had on American life itself. Whether a person watches the channel or never tunes in does not matter. In some way, Fox News has made your life remarkably crappier.
That pandemic we're still in? Fox News' prime time hosts have taken joy in helping to prolong it, and purely for the sake of harpooning a Democratic president's approval rating. Mask-wearing and vaccines, two common sense mitigants to get the spread of COVID-19 under control, are partisan issues dominating airtime on Tucker Carlson's and Laura Ingraham's shows.
Were you hoping to get a break from the sanity-testing anxiety created by the 2020 presidential election? Sorry! Joseph Biden's win meant Fox News lost the main source of its ratings, Biden's orange opponent. So it turned to a fresh energy source: amplifying The Big Lie and assaulting the integrity of our elections by echoing the losing party's baseless claims that the results were rigged.
This may make it sound like Fox News has made life worse solely for liberals but, hate to break it to you Fox News fans, it's also made life crappier for you.
Between Bill O'Reilly 's nightly "Talking Points Memo" propaganda post-its, Megyn Kelly's obsession with Jesus' whiteness , Glenn Beck's rants and the contents of any Sean Hannity or Carlson transcript from the past half decade, Fox News has become rich by drawing you into a loop of anger and paranoia.
That loop was built to keep you watching Fox News and primes you to doubt or fully reject other news sources. Outlets that base their reporting on helpful, illuminating details like data, input from accredited experts. Some of them also publish lovely recipes for quick and delicious weeknight meals.
Worse than all of that, Fox also somehow persuaded you to place your faith in hucksters like Rudy Giuliani, who became so legally radioactive that even they had to ditch him, and Mike Lindell, who may have persuaded you to sleep on his terrible pillows.
This is on top of convincing people that risking severe illness and death is worth it, so long as you protect your personal freedom to refuse scientifically proven preventative measures to protect you from that severe illness and death.
Back to those of us who aren't necessarily saddled with relatives drooling a gravy of lies, illogic and outright bigotry all over otherwise pleasant family gatherings. O'Reilly's manufactured War on Christmas still managed to cast a mild pall on the simplest interactions with strangers. Remember that inanity?
Anyway, those were simpler irritants of a bygone era, when we did things like go over to other people's houses, or spend time in large crowds without fear of infection or sudden outbreaks of hand-to-hand combat.
Change the lens to a wider view, and Fox's destructive role becomes nothing to joke about.
Fox shaped the nation's narrative by emboldening rewrites of history, reinterpreting fact and encouraging the disbelief of one's own eyes. It wins by purposefully repeating misleading information reduced to catchy bumper sticker summations of divisive topics presented with little nuance and devoid of context.
Television news' overall quality is worse as a result, since Fox's political influence and popularity shoved all mainstream news coverage rightward. The network infected journalism with the disease of false equivalency and obfuscation, as organizations contorted themselves to placate accusations of liberal bias. This is explains why, for a short time, NBC tripped over itself to hire Kelly before attempting and failing to normalize her, hoping the audience would eventually forget about her past. And they would have gotten away with it too, if not for her addiction to defending blackface.
The slippage began around the time of the 9/11 and the Iraq War, when Fox first surged ahead of other networks. But it accelerated in the lead-up to the 2008 election and during Barack Obama's presidency when, among other feats, Fox amplified the birther lie.
The urge to ensure representations of all voices on all stories led to such situations as, for example, Republican energy lobbyist and climate change denier Rick Santorum being called upon to offer insights about a damning U.S. National Climate Assessment issued in 2018. He was featured on a news segment instead of a respected climate change scientist and author – who was bumped.
Fox News didn't do that, by the way. That was CNN, doing its best to give a voice to "both sides."
In fairness, and for the sake of balance, it would be silly to blame Fox News for everything that's gone wrong in America over the last 25 years. Republican operative and strategic racist Lee Atwater planted the seeds from which our modern version of partisanship blossomed by the time Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, long before Fox came into existence.
Rush Limbaugh's toxic version of 1990s conservative talk radio was a fixture in media predating Fox as well. Certainly he gathered the first members of what would evolve into the channel's flock. Ailes tried to launch Limbaugh in syndicated television before attempting to bring him over to Fox. He ended up settling for Sean Hannity instead.
Point being, some version of a conservative news channel would have emerged eventually. And might have even been far worse.
Still, one wonders how such a network might have fared if it emphasized journalistic integrity while incorporating a conservative point of view instead of perpetuating an endless cycle of fear, loathing and rage.
Don't think about it for long: Fox tried that. That effort is called its news division, prime time's parasitic twin that management calls forth from the lineup's innards every election night like Kuato. But even the journalistic side succumbed to Breitbart's influence after the 2016 election; with Fox's older viewership dying off, disaffected young white men are replenishing the ranks.
Indeed, for Fox to not have become what it is today, the Republican party, conservative talk radio and the Internet would have to be remarkably different entities than they are and always have been.
America itself would have to be different.
While you cannot blame the network for all that ails America and its imperiled democracy, you can certainly place a surfeit of responsibility upon it for the majority of the ills that befell us over the last six and continues to bedevil us now.
Rupert Murdoch himself claimed credit for getting the 45th president elected and was happy for his network to serve as the administration's propaganda arm.
You remember what happened after that, don't you? Not the details of the blur, the low-grade despair born of being dragged in its current. In the past, when Republicans had an actual agenda, Fox helped sell it to the American people with no apologies. Maybe that meant persuading viewers to hating the French for no reason other than to prove one's patriotism. Maybe it meant making up a non-existent threat like the New Black Panther Party to further stoke its viewers' fear of being governed by a Black president.
Now, Fox's talking heads drum up reasons for people to be afraid of or angry at people dedicated to making their lives better, such as teachers and scientists. Once the network drums up a misinformation campaign, there's little that can be done to stop it from proliferating and mutating into its own virus.
Fox News hosts were key players in transforming "critical race theory," which is taught in law school, into a plot to make white schoolkids feel bad by learning about slavery's foundational role in the making of America. Carlson, the channel's top rated personality is promoting the supposed "great replacement" of the white electorate by non-white immigrants, and spreading anti-vaccine and anti-mask rhetoric.
Crowds of people who could be engaging in any number of worthwhile pursuits – baking, reading, getting vaccinated – are intimidating school boards, threatening election officials and attacking healthcare professionals.
And at 25 Fox is still the top-rated cable news channel. According to Nielsen, in its third quarter the network's ratings averaged 2.372 million viewers in prime time, beating MSNBC (1.267 million viewers) and CNN (822,000 viewers). All three networks suffered a year-over-year ratings decline, with Fox News down by 32% in prime time.
Its overall viewership may be declining, but that matters less than the channel's gravitational pull. Think of the right wing mediasphere as the Star Wars equivalent of the Imperial armada – it's a dreadnought, towing along all the smaller ships like OAN and Newsmax, destroyers and all.
Depressing, isn't it? But that's why Fox News is inescapable. Have a few conversations with people you know, and odds are one of them will reveal they believe President Biden stole the election, or that the threat posed by the Jan. 6 insurrection is overblown, because Tucker said so.
Even if you live in a partisan bubble, someone in your circle of acquaintances is taking ivermectin or believes hydroxychloroquine can be used to treat COVID-19, because "The Ingraham Angle" touted these treatments.
They may have received that information from another source such as OAN, Newsmax, their yoga instructor or Joe Rogan. Rest assured you can draw a line right back to Fox News.
How do we move forward from this? Every answer is insufficient and exhausting. Fox News management isn't interested in reining in its prime time hosts because they're the channel's main ratings magnets. De-programming experts have all sorts of suggestions on how to save the rabid Fox addicts in your life, but once again that places the burden on reasonable people to wade into a reservoir of hatred that's been steadily filling for two and a half decades.
Oddly enough, I stumbled upon another response while watching a 1993 episode of "Northern Exposure," where the characters gather for a feast to celebrate, yes, the 25th anniversary of the local media company owned by the town's version of Roger Ailes, Maurice Minnifield. This is not a perfect parallel, since Maurice was the type of conservative Clinton-era liberals wanted to believe in, which is to say that despite his prejudices, he tended to behave humanely towards others.
Still, to mark that milestone, the town's sage and disc jockey Chris Stevens raises his glass, looks the devil in the face and speaks honestly, calling Maurice a homophobe and a bigot. Then he adds, "One thing you can count on, there's no hidden agenda with this man. Maurice Minnifield is not gonna stab you in the back! No, you're going to see him plunge that dagger right into your belly, pull it up, and twist, and twist, until your guts spill right out onto your shoes."
That doesn't make the blade poking our belly feel any better – but like the man said, at least the adversary is right in our face. What matters next is how the media and democracy responds.
Tellingly Fox, at 25, has changed its slogan to "Standing Up for What's Right."
NewsTalkers user poll...
Is Fox News good or bad for America?
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From a different source, but on the same subject — What 25 years of Fox News has done to America.
The main product produced by Fox News is factional political outrage, manufactured daily with spin and misinformation. They literally endeavor to divide the country along partisan lines by sowing bullshit for profit. Not all that surprising, really, considering Rupert Murdoch's roots in tabloid media (bullshit news), but what is surprising (IMO) is the sheer number of people who line up at Fox's trough every day to eagerly consume the crap they serve.
Are you saying that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, SALON et al, are fair and balanced and don't lie and spin and make shit up....all the while shilling for far left assholes??
I don't think you even know what the far left is, Greg.
And no, they don't intentionally lie and make shit up, and when they do make errors they come back and air corrections.
On the other hand, Fox's entire tabloid business model is to intentionally feed twisted and often demonstrably incorrect information to a rabid political faction that is apparently addicted to outrage. It's the product they sell. It's how they make their money.
For just one recent example, didn't you notice that they tried for a short while last year to report accurately about the election, but when they started losing viewers in droves to a couple of smaller nut job channels they made an abrupt about face and started playing up Trump's lies?
They don't care at all about honesty, ethics, or journalistic integrity. It's only about the money, and they'll tell people whatever they think will make them the most of it, negative effects on broader society be damned.
... virtually anyone that isn't a birther or member of the tea party, from his perspective.
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Do you believe what Tucker Carlson, for example, tells you?
He’s an opinion host. The editorial page of the news paper not the front page of it. Whether we decide to believe his stated opinion on an issue or not means nothing as to news content.
... and a spin-machine; sometimes ridiculously so ... a creator of conspiracy theories. And people believe him.
So you admit (where Dennis will not) that Carlson should not simply be taken at his word. Hosts on Fox News do indeed 'just make shit up'. They were not nearly as bad when Fox started but nowadays they are so far away from 'Fair and Balanced' that it has become a joke.
I said that Tucker along with Sean, Laura, and Prime Times rotating hosts and The Fives five panelists are engaging in commentary advocating a point of view opinion rather than hard news. That’s all. People are free to like the content and believe it or not. It’s still not news. It’s opinion and can’t be classified as a lie unless it can somehow be proved that the host knew what he/she was saying was not the truth and said it anyway.
Then, in your mind, there are no lies unless proven to be so (I presume in a court of law?). But even that appears to not be enough for you because after all the recounts, lawsuits, etc. you still do not recognize Trump's lies.
No wonder you "love" Trump; you do not recognize his lies even when proven as such in a court of law. You buy his lies. No wonder you still believe he won the election.
Do you believe what maddow tells you? Do you believe the other hosts on MSNBC?
No, I do not believe anything simply because some talking head says it is so.
Why do you presume I watch Maddow or MSNBC in general over any other cable outlet? Do you see me quoting her or seeding her?
Them why do you believe and or accuse others. What makes you opinion any more accurate than anyone else's?
Have you ever s watched or listen to Fox news for any length of time
Why do I believe and or accuse others? What is that supposed to mean?
Where did I say my opinion is more accurate than anyone else's? Anyone at all?
Just tossing shit out to see if anything sticks?
And you had an 'article' up recently about Faux 'news' and their 25 year anniversary and how much they were watched. And that they were fair and balanced.
Here you are saying they are an opinion show that has nothing to do with news content.
Which is true.
They might be watched by a lot of magmorons but that doesn't make them fair and balanced or true.
All Faux 'news' has is talking heads spouting their 'opinions', not real news.
You are obviously confusing FOX for those leftist lib mouthpiece sources listed by Greg I post #1.1. I would not trust any of them to walk my dog!
Anyone who watches Faux 'news' is not watching any actual news.
So exactly how is Fox different than MSDNC or CNN? They all use the same tactics to get viewers based on their beliefs.
BTW...Chris Hayes and Rachael Maddow are the same person.
They do not use the same tactics. MSNBC and CNN aren't pro-treason, for one thing. They also aren't getting people killed with lies about Covid. Those people we keep hearing about on their death beds who angrily tell nurses they can't possibly be dying from Covid because it's not a serious thing didn't get that idea from MSNBC or CNN. Fox's bullshit has very likely contributed directly to the deaths of tens of thousands, and possibly indirectly to hundreds of thousands from Covid-19.
Is that supposed to be some kind of homophobic joke?
it is, and it's what passes for humor among room temperature IQ's...
Understanding that you have yet hit that level.
Go ahead and show proof of anything you said. I mean REAL proof. Not SJW talking points. Not what MSDNC or CNN told you to believe (and you do), but REAL evidence of anything you posted.
BTW...I'm expecting silence.
"Is that supposed to be some kind of homophobic joke?"
Sure ain't. Don;t you know you can identify as anyone and anything you like. By liberal standards, if you deny that, YOU are the homophobe, or racist, or whatever dumbshittery the left wants to label someone that does not think the same dumbshittery as them.
If Maddow wants to identify as Hayes a couple of hours prior to going on air, then that's her right.
*facepalm*
I could make this page a mile long with YouTube videos of Fox News being pro Trump the Traitor, and of their active and incessant deceit regarding things like January 6th, mask wearing, the Covid vaccines, and the virus itself, but I shouldn't HAVE TO. If you're a Fox viewer then you damn well know it already.
What the hell does that even mean? Is some idiotic meme about Maddow and Hayes making the rounds in Fox land or something?
Exactly. One cannot reason with those who stubbornly reject anything that does not reinforce their positions.
( One of my key litmus tests today is if someone believes Trump without question. If so, just write that individual off as hopelessly, stubbornly irrational. )
And delusional.
So you thought it was humorous then.
Sorry, but only in liberal lala land is it that someone that believes something other than what a loon leftist believes, that person....or in this case...a news channel..is traitorous.
You won't show any of your "proof" simply because what you believe is totally ignorant and will easily be debunked.
All you had to say was "I don't have any proof for the bs I post".and it would have been far more believable (and truthful" to what you posted in 2.1.4 AND 2.1
I inferred that Trump was a traitor, not a news channel. Although, by continuing to be pro Trump, Fox could certainly be considered adjacent.
It's a label generally applied to someone who commits an act of treason, like... oh, I don't know... attempting to overthrow an election in order to have himself reinstalled as president or something, which is a direct attack on the Constitution and the republic itself. Hence, traitor.
Listen, if you actually need proof that Fox News is pro Trump, or that Fox hosts who have millions of faithful viewers have repeatedly played down the seriousness of the pandemic (and Jan 6, too), then you have problems far beyond my ability to solve.
It's utterly ridiculous, and I have no intention of wasting time on it for your sake. It's like asking me for proof that people breathe air, for crying out loud. If you don't already know something as obvious as that, then I can't help you.
You really have no clue, do you?
Again....all of these channels mentioned above do the exact same thing, but on polar sides of the spectrum.
If you can't understand that, there is no hope.
Again... THEY DO NOT.
Fox News is guilty of all of that.
It's as if they are pro-treason and pro-pandemic, which is disgusting, shameful, and completely un-American, to say the least.
Maybe they are not what you say thy are, but they are white liberal apologists that blame whitey for everything wrong in the country, they cover for the most outright heinous crimes committed and allegedly committed by democrats.
"They have NOT played down the seriousness of Jan 6, which was an attack on the republic"
Because it was not an insurrection, it was a bunch of idiots acting stupid, but not as stupid as the thousands of idiots that rioted throughout the summer of 2020.,
."They have NOT played down the seriousness of the pandemic"
Either has Fox, but "they" have made it nothing but political by blaming Trump for the virus.
"They are NOT the ones who have promoted bullshit Covid treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin while knocking actual preventative measures like masks and vaccines"
Actually, these treatments have been proven effective for the early stage treatment of covid, but because Trump is the one that first mentioned hydroxychloroquine, the left does not want to admit it helps. Pretty much the same as ivermectin, with leftist idiots going as far as saying people are taking horse dewormer. What a bunch of idiots.
"They are NOT the ones trying to portray masks and vaccines as infringements on liberty during what is now the deadliest pandemic in U.S. history (when they're not)"
Either is Fox. They are simply saying that Americans have individual rights and one of those rights is if they want to wear a mask or not, especially if they are fully vaccinated or if they have had COVID. The left has politicized masks to the point that the next COVID variant next year is already dubbed the midterm variant, so that loon leftists can continue to act if COVID is a major factor and that the illegal voting procedures put into place by left wing politicians can be kept into play.
Outright heinous crimes? Like what, for example?
A Fox talking point? That figures.
That bunch of idiots -- stoked by Trumps lies after the election, and then again by Trump and some of his acolytes at a rally that morning -- violently attacked the United States Congress in an attempt to subvert the proceedings to certify the election result.
Idiots indeed, but it was still an attack on the Constitutional order of the United States, and absolutely qualifies as an insurrection.
Another Fox talking point.
When weighed against the whole, relatively few of the protests turned riotous, and NONE of them were attacks on the United States Congress and the republic itself.
That is absolute BULLSHIT! To say that Fox hasn't played down the virus when everyone saw them doing it with their own eyes is bad faith gaslighting in the extreme. Trump himself admitted publicly that he played down the virus, and Fox was a mouthpiece for him that parroted his nonsense the entire time. EVERYONE KNOWS THIS. How disingenuous of you to make that claim.
Trump and outlets like Fox are why it became political, but nobody blames Trump for the virus itself.
No, they absolutely have not -- According to the FDA, CDC, National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), there are no good data showing either product is effective against COVID-19, but adverse events have been linked to their use.
And if you don't like that source, you'll hear the exact same thing from every other organization that isn't a propaganda outlet for Trump like Fox News. Why do you suppose that is? Hmm?
Which is both a philosophically and legally incorrect position to hold when the issue is harm to others. Nobody has an "individual right" to harm others, and Covid is a highly transmissible airborne virus that people catch from other people. When a disease outbreak like this reaches crisis levels, governments are well within the purview of what is right an just to intervene and take steps to protect the citizenry from harm (or from harming each other, as it were).
The midterm variant, eh? Did you hear one that on Fox?
If Covid is still a major issue by the midterms (and it very well could be), then it will likely be because of the magnificently ignorant people who watch and believe crap like Fox News, and actively resist measures to reduce the recurrent spread and prevalence of the virus.
Hell, our death toll could be in the millions by then. Go Fox! Right?
On the other hand, we might have a few more effective treatments by then, especially if things like the Merck antiviral pill work out (unless Fox decides it's profitable for them to take a position against that too). Pills like that won't stop the spread, but more people might survive, even if the virus is still at pandemic levels.
I'm not going to take the time to rebuke every one of the leftist talking points you were given in your reply. However, I will say I understand why you don't get it. Just as you accuse Fox for talking points, you are spewing the exact opposite talking points given to you by CNN and MSDNC.
It's hilarious when people who think Fox is lying are the same people that listen and watch CNN and MSDNC religiously and believe everything they are fed, without question.
BTW...when are you going to call for the resignation of Fredo for sexual assault on an ABC exec, or the resignation of Don Lemon for the same on a man a couple of years ago. Seems like CNN is acceptable of these types of people.
Get what? Reality? I'm not the one getting my world view through the filter of a propaganda channel whose mission for the past several years has been to portray a person like Donald Trump as some kind of great American leader, when in truth he was about as bad as it gets. The man has a whole slew of psychological disorders and character issues, and is about the worst kind of person you could ever have in a job like that — a highly corrupt, life-long con artist and grifter; a completely self-centered narcissist and sociopath; an egomaniac; a mythomaniac (pathological liar); and now to top it all off, a traitor to the Republic.
At this point, Fox's continuing support for the alternate-reality shit show that is Donald J. Trump deserves nothing but scorn and contempt.
I keep checking my post for 'talking points', or thoughts and opinions that aren't my own. Sorry, I'm not seeing any.
I get reporting from many sources, not just those two (presuming you mean MSNBC) and I will often check sources on my own and investigate further on important subjects. What I don't do is trust or give credence to any source or reporter that uses the phrase 'mainstream media' as a pejorative, which is a dead giveaway that they're a crazy fringe outlier with ulterior motives (which is the only reason to go out of your way to knock the 'mainstream' in the first place), and Fox News practically has a patent on that.
I don't know anything about internal drama at CNN. I almost never watch it to begin with, only the occasional late night or early morning broadcast when they're doing world news recaps. I actually had to look that up to see what you were talking about (and to figure out who the hell Fredo is supposed to be). If the allegations are true, then yeah, canning them wouldn't be any skin off my back, I don't watch them. And if there are victims who feel they've been harmed and traumatized, then they can take it to the courts, which is exactly how things should work.
I will ask you. Have you ever listened or watched FOX news.
Well of course I have. Mostly the evening hosts. Not very often, though. They make my skin crawl. Sometimes I'll watch segments on YouTube if one of them has been outrageous enough that I hear about it on other news, just to keep up with the crazy. I also check in on conservative hate radio from time to time, which is just as disgusting.
It’s been a great 25 years! THANKS! We love Fox News Channel.
136 persons on and off the air working for the Fox News Channel have been there since day one or before even going on air. Remarkable loyalty.
The idea behind FoxNews was a good one. There are other perspectives - other sides to stories - that often go ignored by popular news media. So a news network that expands on the stories should be beneficial.
Unfortunately, the reaction from the old media wasn't to try to be more complete and neutral in their coverage. Instead, they have grown to lean even further left. Now - at least for me - all of these networks, be they on the Right or Left, cable or broadcast, are largely unwatchable because the approach is partisan before all else.
And CNN, MSNBC most if not all of the left leaning media is jus plain bullshit
Don't forget to vote in the poll up there, everyone. It's at the bottom of the seeded article.
Why, do you plan on discounting or not honoring those votes for FOX over the others?
What makes you leap to a presumption that Dig is dishonest? Out of character for you Ed.
Having known Dig for years, you are waaaay out of line.
You are right. I was out of line and I was wrong to state what I did. Have had a bad day and am not feeling well. My sincere apologies to Dig and any others that I may have offended.
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The result is rather predictable here.
A majority will consider Fox News bad based simply on their partisan biases.
Not really sure what you hope to accomplish .....
More like because of Fox's partisan biases.
With the poll? Polls are fun. Data is fun. Informative, too.
opinions do vary
yep, especially when the result is guaranteed by the control group being polled.
You Literally Can't Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox's Lawyers
Great defense, ''our client is full of shit.''
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I guess it would take a commie to know what communists believe. Thanks for the admission, comrade.
Um, I'm not the one who posted the link.
For someone to post a link, they must truly believe the link.
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No, you're not, that would take someone with more of an unbias view and of course the ability to read the legal decision by the judge.
Yes, that is generally true and it was for information purposes to the uninformed.
I will believe the judge and her decision before some uninformed person on the internet. I doubt that the judge is a commie and a copy of her decison is in the link.
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They seem to have lying down pat.
Show us who that person is, John.
Hello? John? you there?
Takeaway? By 2 to 1 people find Fox News harmful...
In a meaningless unscientific poll on a website that is predominately left wing.
Don't let it get to your heaf