Okay, so they don't deny that Fox News Channel actually does those things. That's good.
But how realistic is it that when engaged in political warfare, that among all the dirt slinging, and name calling, and opposition bashing that happens, that one side would decide that they're above actually correcting misinformation from the other side, and calling them out on their errors.
I offer this: the reason there aren't tons of stories about how non-fox news channels intentionally mislead their viewers is because they don't intentionally mislead their viewers.
Another possible response to the above statement is "But those are just opinion shows and therefore are irrelevant."
For that I have an analogy. Suppose I'm a popular opinion TV show host on a news channel. I tell my viewers that everybody should stop eating McDonald's hamburgers because it's wrong since they use human baby meat. Now, the opinion that it's wrong to eat McDonald's hamburgers is fine. But reason is being shown as a fact, but it's actually a falsehood. When everybody on my show agrees with me, or I don't allow the people that offer an alternative perspective to speak for more than a minute without interrupting them, doesn't that matter? When the news company I work for encourages me to make such statements, shouldn't that be a problem? When some says "Actually, they use beef," and I respond with "that's not true" repeatedly, shouldn't I have some sort of responsibility to my viewership to actually be aware of the truth?
Opinions are fine, but many opinions are either about facts (That car is ugly because it's purple and purple is ugly), or built upon a foundation of fact (Fewer people watch television commercials, so a change in how television is broadcast is a good idea). Now if the car is orange, my opinion makes no sense and has no validity. Same thing if more people are watching commercials than before. If people are making their opinions about ideas that aren't true, then they're arguing about nonreality. but they are portraying the nonreality as real, and hoping you don't know.
If I say James is a terrible employee because he always shows up late, never completes his work on time, and distracts his coworkers from their job, you'd probably be inclined to agree. Except if James has only showed up late once, consistently is ahead of his deadlines, and actually actively helps his coworkers do their job better, you'd have a more difficult time agreeing he's a terrible employee. I might still think he's a terrible employee, and that's valid. But my reasons aren't. If you had to choose whether or not James stayed employed, wouldn't you want the most correct information you could get?
If I say studies show that viewers of Fox News are consistently more misinformed about current issues, I might get such responses as "Those studies could say anything. Did you read them yourself, or just what somebody told you they said?" That's generally a blatant disregard for the standards of several news outlets that comment on the study. Producing the actual study generally causes a shift in topic. Another often heard response is "It's all a big left-wing attack on Fox News, because we're the only opposition to them."
I don't think international skepticism and criticism of Fox News is a a grand, left-wing conspiracy to discredit them. I think most of the people can recognize what is happening when they see it, and some percentage of people actually call them out on it. But Fox has somehow gained the trust of it's viewers, and people believe who they trust more than they'll believe anybody else. Especially when the people they trust are all constantly repeating the same few messages, one of which is "Everybody else is trying to keep us from showing you the truth." When those people say things like "If you think I'm wrong let me know, here's my contact information." It seems to add a lot of credibility to the speaker, except that speaker tends to never show you any sort of responses they may get, which the viewer would assume to mean there were no errors is his statements. Of course it could also mean he just didn't show you what he received.
There is so much information showing how Fox News lies, distorts, and misconstrues things (all in one direction). Systematically ignoring study after study, example after example, is a testament to the hold that channel has on the people that watch it passionately. If I saw half a dozen studies that said the news program I watch is highly correlated to being misinformed, I wouldn't be comfortable with that.
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