Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 303

• My vote still stands. We're talking about a network that was founded after Republicans repealed the Fairness Doctrine specifically to serve as a function of the Republican party and there are countless examples of this bias impacting their reporting. Even CNN and MSNBC (who have their own problems, such as a corporatist establishment bias and Andrew Cuomo being repeatedly interviewed by his own brother on CNN) don't have that bragging right. Darkknight2149 16:49, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• I'd take what Rolling Stone says with a grain of salt. They're already not considered reliable when it comes to politics (they've been called "the house organ of the Democratic National Committee"), and from what I can tell there hasn't been a good discussion here about how their editors let a fabricated rape story and a cover that glamorized Dzhokhar Tsarnaev slide. They're definitely questionable. JOEBRO64 19:49, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• Hah. So Rolling Stone is unreliable (because some right-wing pundit called them biased, and because they published and later retracted a false story), but you consider Fox News reliable? I'm not defending Rolling Stone—it's a poor source—I'm just bemused by the hypocrisy and evident double standard on display. Thanks for crystallizing it, at least. MastCell ^Talk 21:05, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• personal attacks; I only comment here in good faith, so I ask you to assume good faith in return. JOEBRO64
  21:21, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• OK, so Rolling Stone is unreliable for news/politics because a right-wing pundit said so, and because they published and then retracted a false story. But you find Fox News reliable for news/politics, despite criticism of their bias, and despite the publication (and occasional retraction) of false stories (e.g. Seth Rich conspiracy, Hillary indictment, digitally manipulated fake images, etc) by their news—not opinion—groups. I am assuming good faith: that you simply don't see the double standard at work, not that you are purposely favoring or denigrating sources based on their ideological tilt. MastCell ^Talk 21:45, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• I should probably point out that this information isn't coming from Rolling Stone. I cited them for convenience because they were one of the first sources that came up in a quick Google search. If I'm not mistaken, even the Fox News article goes into detail on this a little bit and it's fairly common knowledge. Fox News was founded specifically as an alternative Republican-centred news network (not even right wing politics in general, but specifically the American Republican party). The founders themselves had ties to the Republican party as well, so it's essentially just a propaganda network with some "sky is blue" reporting baked in. Darkknight2149 03:06, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

• @
  Perennial. That tells us all we need to know about your opinions here. You shouldn't even be reading Townhall. When it comes to American politics, Rolling Stone is far more reliable than Fox News, even on the rare occasions that the news anchors at Fox come up to its level of truth telling, which requires that they go against the agenda of their own network. -- Valjean (talk
  ) 15:03, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
• @TheJoebro64, Darkknight2149, MastCell, and Valjean: I think you've gone a bit off-topic here. The question isn't whether Rolling Stone is reliable or not, as Fox News's history is well documented regardless (literally whole books have been written about it); the question is whether and how this historical ideological orientation affects its coverage today. I for one agree with the narrative (again documented in numerous sources) that what began as a unofficial Republican enterprise has gone off the rails in the last decade and a half or so, to the point where it operates more as an "outrage reinforcement machine" than a news dissemination organization (which again is backed by multiple sources). François Robere (talk) 12:45, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• @TheJoebro64 and Darkknight2149: Let's expand that ellipsis in your quote: "Overall, Fox viewers were not better or worse than the average respondent at answering the questions. That said, and all salient variables being geekily controlled for, there was not merely a zero effect but a negative effect of Fox News on viewers’ ability to answer the questions; meaning that Fox viewers would have done better had they been using almost any other news source, or no news source at all." In other words - "dumb" or not, Fox News is a net negative for its viewers as far knowledge of current affairs goes. François Robere (talk) 17:37, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

• Options 1/2. Option 1 Per Cactus Jack. Their news reporting is generally adequate. Fairly removed from their talk shows which are Option 4: Tucker Carlson is Option Crank: Usually display a delicate but perceptible spine. When necessary issue corrections. Coverage bias is tangible but no worse than others - all news orgs have this bias. However, Donald Trump coverage - option 2 due to relationship as others noted.DonkeyPunchResin (talk) 22:31, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, although with elements of 3/4. At this point, other editors have exhaustively sourced their concerns with Fox's tendency toward partisan misinformation. Highlights include the promotion and/or fabrication of partisan conspiracy theories around a murder victim (which were rushed into print on Wikipedia by editors with poor judgment, compounding the victim's family's distress in a hopefully small but real way), Fox's active involvement in promoting climate-change denialism, the promotion of various conspiracy theories about Obama, the false news report—several days before the 2016 election—that Hillary Clinton was about to be indicted, and so on.

  Most recently, Fox News has served as a veritable firehose of misinformation on the Covid-19 pandemic, with measurably harmful consequences: recent scholarly work has documented the unique role that Fox played in spreading harmful misinformation & conspiracy theories about the pandemic, resulting in poorer compliance with safety measures and greater viral spread (summarized here). Since Wikipedia aspires to provide accurate information, relying on Fox News seems ill-advised.

  I would stop short of saying that Fox News is "generally unreliable", but at a minimum, material appearing only on Fox News, without independent verification from sources with better track records, should be treated with extreme caution or excluded. Unfortunately, editors with this sort of good judgment tend to be in short supply on the kinds of articles where Fox News is most likely to broadcast misinformation.

  There's a disconcerting amount of false equivalence on display in this thread. Fox News isn't comparable to CBS, or the Times, or the Post. It's closer to state TV in terms of its close identification with the Republican Party and the Trump Presidency. Other outlets have biases, but none are so closely tied to a specific political personality and partisan affiliation. More specifically, think about Memogate. In response to incorrect reporting, CBS News fired its most prominent on-air personality and hired a Republican politician to conduct an outside review of its practices. Can you imagine Fox News doing anything like that in response to its various falsehoods? Of course not, because Fox News operates under a very different set of parameters than CBS, and comparing the two is just silly.

  Finally, there's a really disappointing, albeit cynically effective, tactic on display here whereby concerns about Fox News are attributed to simple partisanship. The problem is not that Fox News has a conservative bias—the problem is that it frequently allows that bias to manifest in false, misleading, or inaccurate material, and we as a fact- and reality-based project have to treat it with caution as a result. The two arguments in favor of Fox's reliability boil down to whataboutism ("all outlets make mistakes!") and insinuation ("you don't like it because you're lib'rul!") I guess a third argument relies on a distinction between Fox's news and opinion reporting—a distinction that Fox News itself makes every effort to blur. MastCell ^Talk 22:51, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

• Like--Davide King (talk) 02:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
• Like -- Valjean (talk) 14:21, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
• Like -- TucanHolmes (talk) 21:15, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3. User MastCell sums up my thoughts eloquently, and far better than I could have, although I tend to give them even less benefit of the doubt because of their track record being so spotty at best, so I would say option 3 at best. oknazevad (talk) 02:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 If Fox is providing non-controversial information that may be unique to it (not available elsewhere) that is fine. If it is echoing what other sources have said but with a conservative tint that is fine. When it comes to highly controversial statements that are factually disputed by other sources, Fox should be attributed. At the least, Fox should be available for attribution. It would be unbalanced to entirely blacklist or deprecate the site - readers need to know what is out there. Common sense applies. If Fox is spouting conspiracy theories that no reliable source is picking up, attribute it, don't censor it. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Actually such misinformation has so little due weight that we are not supposed to even mention it. We mention it only if RS spend time on the matter, and we cite the RS, not Fox News. When Fox News does mention facts that are covered by other sources, we should use them, not Fox News. -- Valjean (talk) 14:28, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
• Defective question As North8000 said, but it's worse. The introductory part violates
  WP:NOTCENSORED but I fear that !voting for it helps legitimize this procedure. I won't reply to heckling. Peter Gulutzan (talk
  ) 00:25, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Thucydides411 et al. This is a pretty blatant attempt to insert politics into editing. We shouldn't. --GRuban (talk) 02:29, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Fox was a blatant (and successful) attempt of inserting politics into 24/7 news broadcast.[91] François Robere (talk) 11:07, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
    • That article (as many here are) is talking about Fox talk shows. It starts with Sean Hannity, for example. --GRuban (talk) 01:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
      • Actually it discusses Fox News as a network. It's a single network, you know, and everyone there answer to the same people. If Lachlan Murdoch was concerned with journalistic integrity he would've disciplined Hannity long ago, just like NYT's A. G. Sulzberger stepped in after the Tom Cotton op-ed. Can you trust a news organization that exercises so little control over so much of its output? Are you aware of any other organization that does? François Robere (talk) 12:08, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
        • I couldn't agree more. What's more, Saturday Night Live had a totally ridiculous parody of a political figure last night, so we need to blacklist NBC, since they're the same network. A comic strip syndicated in the New York Times made a completely untrue joke, so we need to blacklist the Gray Lady. An opinion columnist in the Washington Post shot her mouth off, so we need to blacklist the Post. Sure, one is a comedy show, one is a comic strip, one is an opinion column, but in each case the publisher or producer in each case didn't demonstrate integrity! THey should have disciplined them! I like that word, disciplined - ideally with spikes and leather. They all answer to the same publisher or producer ... how dare those publishers or producers claim to have any kind of news organizations worthy of any kind of respect! How dare they insist we be able to easily tell the difference between news and opinion? That's asking too much of us readers, like a high school education or something. You get the tar, I've got the feathers right here. --GRuban (talk) 00:12, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
          • Are you suggesting that Fox News's "talking heads" are as reliable as an explicitly comedic show? If so, then surely FN should be deprecated as a
            WP:NEWSORG.
            If SNL was aired under the banner of NBC News or MSNBC rather than NBC, and as a news show rather than satire; and if the network had dedicated half its broadcast time to such shows, while blurring the distinction between them and "real" news (eg. by sharing newscasters and segments); and if the news shows themselves were sub-par; then yes, I would agree it should be deprecated as well.
            Also, my DMs are open. François Robere (talk
            ) 11:22, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3Get's my vote. Dutchy45 (talk) 23:39, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 "Reliable" means "you can rely on it". You need to be pretty gullible to rely on Fox. Unfortunately, there is a lot of gullible people. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:22, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1, No matter the criticisms that may apply to any other channel, Fox news has provided accurate news and useful talk shows. Alex-h (talk) 09:49, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 or Option 3 (second choice) for anything related to politics or history. I rarely express a political opinion on Wikipedia and I don't intend to do so today. I intend to opine on the quality of Fox journalism. My normal editing field is 19th century US biography, though I stray occasionally into more modern subjects. Primarily I read history. I am a voracious news reader and watcher. I'm also a frequent reader of sources like CJR and Poynter which watch journalists at work. As a lay historian I've developed a healthy disrespect for newspapers as sources; there's often insuffient time for accuracy when the day's deadline draws near. IMHO today's television news shows and websites serve as the modern advertising-driven analogue. I've come to the conclusion over a number of years that cable news networks hold themselves up as reliable sources, but rarely pass the test. There's a focus on intensity over objectivity. But Murdock-owned media properties in general and Fox News in specific seem to operate much like the Hearst properties of old -- begin with a desired outcome and build articles and columns which cherrypick sources in order to convince the audience of the correctness of the desired outcome. Over time I have seen large a number of apparently manufactured artifacts (of which today's Epstein pic "gaffe" has coincidentally arrived on the last day of this RFC). All the hair-splitting related to news side and entertainment side misses the nugget: it is apparent to my eyes the news day at Fox begins with a subjective set of talking points management wants in viewers' brains and everything which is broadcast or uploaded during the day is designed to insert and support those talking points in the viewers' minds. I have stopped relying on them and I have seen sufficient evidence to believe Fox deliberately misleads and distorts the material they present. I have little doubt how human history will judge this era in US History. Fox News will, IMHO, be regarded as a prime representative of what went wrong in the news media of the early 21st century. BusterD (talk) 23:45, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
  • You're spot-on with the most important thing that people calling for Option 1 are missing: how can we separate their straight reporting from their talk shows when Fox makes no such distinction themselves? They may say they do, or at least said they did once, but it's obvious is practice that they're just paying lip service when the hosts are appearing throughout the day, and their "commentary" is unchecked by other hosts. When the same people are spouting the same errors with no challenge to the erroneous claims any time of the day, there's no meaningful distinction that can be made between the two. Top it off with the whole "talking points" slant to their news coverage, which has been known about since the George W Bush administration, and it's obvious that they are a propaganda outfit. oknazevad (talk) 13:50, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
  • @
    pseudo-science. Fox News is not, and never was intended to be, a real "news" channel. It's a pseudo-journalistic propaganda machine. That's why the few real journalists, who occasionally report the facts that are uncomfortable to the network's agenda, get critcized by their own colleagues. Shep Smith finally gave up. No other channel has this situation, because their agenda is to report the facts. -- Valjean (talk
    ) 15:23, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 for news. Their opinion pieces are no different than any other network's opinion pieces and should be quoted properly. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:46, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 It is generally reliable. ‍‍Telluride (talk) 13:02, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 --Spiffy sperry (talk) 16:06, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 Having gone through the discussion and the evidence presented, I'd make my assessment taking them as the basis. While there's a fair lot of "Option 1" !votes, I can't help but notice that a considerable number of the points raised by those who are endorsing "Option 3" or "Option 4" have gone unaddressed.

Firstly, the major argument the former group does present is that of distinction between ententes of the FOX network; which would in effect present the need for segregated assessments for the distinct ententes if merited. One primary distinction being presented is that of network affiliates and the national news service. Another form of distinction being made is that of between parts of the national news service such as cable pundits, cable news and their online reproduction. However, relying on the academic sources presented one can ascertain that academia itself is not making a whole lot of distinction within parts of the national news service (through fox cable channel, pundits or otherwise and foxnews.com), the entirety of which also seems to be under the same editorial leadership. In line with that one should be able to make singular assessment of Fox News cable channel's broadcast and online derivative. Though there does seem to be validity for local affiliates to be considered as distinct as they do have separate editorial structures, are principally subjected to FCC regulations which are in variation and have not been generally subjected to an inspection in the said academic sources. Therefore they might require separate assessments, although it should still probably be noted that they are still not entirely independent of the former.

Secondly, the points raised in terms of climate change denial and Covid-19 misinformation have gone almost entirely unaddressed and almost certainly makes it deprecation worthy for any science related subject at the least. The news service also seems to endorse other conspiracy theories besides those mentioned and has frequent instances of misreporting; this might have been given less consideration if it weren't to be systemic as noted by the numerous academic sources which have been presented. The fact that this is also the most unaddressed point is the reason why in my opinion the news service should be considered generally unreliable. Since the Daily Mail comparison has been brought up it would completely fit in as a direct parallel in this regard. In addition there has been presented considerable evidence where FOX has indulged in deliberate fabrication especially in the case of major current events reporting. This points towards the exact opposite of a "reputation for fact-checking, accuracy and error-correction" which is a major requirement for a source to be generally considered reliable. The only argument against it is that it qualifies as a news organisation with an editorial team which honestly is not persuasive considering that it completely ignores the aforementioned detail.

Lastly, there actually seems to be a consensus that FOX is a biased source in favor of the conservatives in the United States. Partisanship or ideological bias would not be issue in of itself if it had not been brought to the effect of a lack of independence; there is ample evidence to the effect from academic sources which points towards a close identification with the Republican Party, at times described as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. That makes it tricky as it lies in the grey area of being somewhere in between independent news and state sponsored propaganda. In the current scenario, I'd rather say that its in fact closer to the latter than the former taking into consideration that a lot of the evidence points to a close association with President Donald Trump.

All in a case for Option 4 on par with the Daily Mail might be made as well especially with regards to news from the post-2016 period due the last point while a case for Option 1 or Option 2 can still be made with regards to its local affiliates though ideally they should be left out of any assessment in this RfC, imv. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 23:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

• Like Very good analysis. -- Valjean (talk) 01:24, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 - stick with the status quo.
  WP:VERIFY
  , which says we should aim for verifiabilty, not truth, is the relevant policy here. Many respondents here have claiming FOX isn't reliable seem to be basing their assertions on their personal conclusions Fox isn't truthful.

Even The New York Times, and other RS considered the very most reliable, have had scandals when they learned their reporters had engaged in plagiarism, or had invented quotes, invented whole stories.

I think the real problem is that we have new or lazy contributors, who lapse from the NPOV, by not attributing opinions to their sources. These non-complying contributors will read an article, that makes assertion XYZ, and will leave out the attribution, when they add XYZ to article space, putting it in the wikipedia's voice, as if it were an established fact.

The appropriate solution for wikipedia contributors who put possibly untrue assertions from Fox in the wikipedia's own voice is not to bar using Fox as a source. The appropriate solution is for the rest of us to work to educate those non-complying contributors in how to attribute and neutrally cover assertions, form Fox, or the NYTimes. If we all more fully comply with NPOV then those occasions when Fox reporting, or the NYTimes reporting, includes assertions that weren't true, our coverage, nevertheless, measured up to policy, and doesn't have to be altered, when the untruth of our sources is revealed. Geo Swan (talk) 00:16, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Fox News)

• US media landscape has changed a lot since 2010, and not to the better. That being said, I am interested to see what concrete examples of inaccuracies on Fox's part that can be found. Talk shows on any network should never be cited for facts imo. buidhe 20:08, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't think lack of factual falsehoods makes a source reliable. Remember that the coverage of something in RS is also used for determining WP:WEIGHT in Wikipedia so if a fact collection is sufficiently biased or omits relevant info due to agenda pushing, it can end up tilting what we call the NPOV if we treat the fact selection as neutral. Facts themselves can also be distorted without being stated falsely outright, and the nature of agenda pushing is to do that. This is goes beyond Fox News. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 21:26, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

If factual accuracy is not the metric, then what is? If

WP:RS is not about reliability, there's a danger that the policy will end up being used to remove sources simply because they cover issues that editors don't want to be included on Wikipedia. -Thucydides411 (talk

) 19:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• The local affiliates will make this a really tricky one - David Gerard (talk) 20:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with Buidhe, my opinion is that the RfC from 2010 was outdated, as I agree that the US media landscape has changed greatly since 2010. Fox News tends to discussed a lot, so I thought it was worth opening a proper RfC to settle the issue. One of the main controversies about the factual accuracy of Fox News since 2010 revolves around the now retracted false claims that
  Seth Rich was in contact with Wikileaks back in 2017, see this archive of the original Fox News article and these Politifact and Snopes articles, there are allergations that some of the quotes for the story were fabricated. Hemiauchenia (talk
  ) 20:25, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• WP:RS/Perennial sources to avoid multiple time-sink RfCs? ^Atsme _Talk 📧
  21:05, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  The purpose of the

  edit warring since the list was created, and based on that, I had been expecting RfCs on these sources for some time. — Newslinger talk

  22:58, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Well, if this is a "real" RfC, the projects and wider community need to be informed. Who is in charge of doing that? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:00, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  adding - Newslinger - this RfC is malformed because it doesn't separate the pundit shows from the actual news, and it doesn't say anything about it being Fox cable or Fox broadcast. 01:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  This RfC is not malformed. The RfC statement includes the text "(as separate from their cable pundits)", which clarifies that it refers to the

  Fox News (talk shows) entries.) In my experience, notifying WikiProjects of discussions on this noticeboard about mainstream American news sources tends not to make a difference in participation, but you or anyone else can notify related projects if you wish to do so. — Newslinger talk

  01:18, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Newslinger - it doesn't specifically state FoxNews (cable/satellite) vs FoxNews network affiliate broadcast stations. The latter are subject to FCC regulations that are different from networks and satellite transmitted news. I see David Gerard also mentioned it above. Oh, and thank you for adding this RfC to WP:CENT. My concern is the continuous partisan push (for years now) to downgrade this RS because of its conservative bias while keeping only center-left and left leaning biased sources. It appears the arguments are based primarily on POV opposition rather than factual news reporting. A network like Fox News doesn't become a most watched political news station whose viewership is bipartisan by being unreliably biased. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  No problem. It looks like Hemiauchenia has inserted an additional question into the RfC statement that specifically asks about affiliate stations. As a general rule of thumb, RSP entries for television channels only refer to the main channel, and not to any affiliate stations of the parent company's television network. For Fox, the

  inclusion criteria on its own, it would receive a separate entry on RSP. I trust the community and the closers (preferably a panel of closers) to reach the right decision. — Newslinger talk

  05:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  Actually, the most effective way to publicize this RfC is to list it on the

  centralized discussion template, which would put this RfC on the same level of vetting as the ones for the Daily Mail (RSP entry) and Quackwatch (RSP entry). I've added this RfC to the template. — Newslinger talk

  05:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Atsme: I'm not sure what your point is, the last RfC on Fox News really was in 2010. Fox News is also listed at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources as one of the most controversial sources on the list (alongside SPLC, which has never had a RfC) and recommends opening a new one. There have not been any recent-discussion on the general reliability of Fox News, so I thought it was worth having this discussion as a reference for subsequent discussions about Fox News's reliability, a lot has changed since 2010, especially with the election of Donald Trump, so I think it is worth doing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 237#Is Fox News a WP:RS 2018 RfC ^{update per below: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 238#Fox News reliability RfC 15:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)}
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 257#Fox News 2019 Discussion
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 276#Reboot to specifically address Fox News (talk shows) Oct 2019
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 287#Fox News, 9/11 topic March 2020
  • And there were several other discussions in 2020 that point editors back to eariler discussions. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:48, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

    WP:CCC. We're likely to see the Mail off the list at some point if the new editor continues to make progress. In the same way, Fox has changed over time and the March discussion was narrowly focused. Guy (help!

    ) 22:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

    @Atsme: I don’t see an RfC in the 2018 post in Archive 237? — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:02, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    I think it might be Archive 238 Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 238#Fox News reliability RfC. PackMecEng (talk) 05:09, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    Thank you for finding that, PackMecEng. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    Ah, thanks! It seems to have been limited in scope and then withdrawn, so there really hasn’t been a full RS RfC since 2010. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    Looks like, though the discussion that spawned that 2018 RFC had quite the participation. PackMecEng (talk) 05:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: Fair enough, the issue is that none of these were actually properly formatted as a RfC, though the 237 and 257 Archive discussions are substantial, I apologise for not checking thoroughly. By formatting this as a proper RfC, hopefully we can end the endless cyclical discussions about Fox News. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Also, even the Daily Mail being depreciated has not stopped endless discussions about it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:58, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Apples and oranges. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:02, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think we need to keep in mind that the Wikipedia policy of reliable sources is editorial oversight. Fox News does fact checking like any other major news organization, but the end result is always disputable on significance and implications (just like CNNs or MSNBC's reporting). News organisations create narratives that often times are not real or are exaggerated (for example ideas like government collision or broad racism or social justice are not perceived in the same way by these organizations). But keep in mind that "truth" and "facts" on events that come out of any news organization will carry bias since they tend to interpret little facts like a case of police brutality and then extrapolate it to abstractions like racism or harassment and so on. When it comes to these mega interpretations, there is very little truth since there is no such thing as an organization that determines the truth of an interpretation. If Fox News has been discussed multiple times back to back recently then this is a closed debate.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:44, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• There is always a comment that we are talking about Fox news anchors “as separate from their cable pundits”. Firstly, the latter is what everyone watches and thinks of as Fox News. But there is another point we keep avoiding (at least as far as I’ve seen); and that is Fox broadcast versus the Fox website. The Fox website is cited heavily in WP. But, the site is embarrassing to read. The main stories are nearly always political attacks. If there is no news, they will go back and run stories about Benghazi and Lewinsky. O3000 (talk) 01:30, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Let's not make this about one topic, and whether a RS believes it 100% or not, or whether or not they choose to publish opposing views. That does not make them unreliable - it makes them opposition to one POV. We need diversity - not a single POV - and attempting to eliminate all opposition to a single scientific belief when there are others is censorship. This isn't a case of the world is round, not yet, anyway, so we give DUE to prevailing science theory and also include what the opposition believes (if it is also based on scientific theory). Science can factually and steadfastly state a lot of things as fact, just not questionable predictions which deserve mention. As long as there is scientific controversy, we include it - we don't have to believe it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:42, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• The references here have been moved to #References (Fox News), as the {{reflist-talk}} template captures all references above the template, including ones added in newer comments. Atsme's comment below was made when the references template looked like this: Special:Diff/961474909 § Discussion (Fox News). The {{reflist-talk}} template was originally in the bottom of the Responses section, then moved to the bottom of this Discussion section, and now finally to its own References section. — Newslinger talk 05:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  The references above are either not reliable or not up-to-date (WP:RECENTISM) if they say Fox didn't retract the Seth Rich story - (and that is part of the reason this RfC needs an experienced closer who is not politically biased). See the NYTimes article which states: Fox News on Tuesday retracted a story linking the murder of a Democratic National Committee staff member with the email hacks that aided President Trump’s campaign, effectively quashing a conspiracy theory that had taken hold across the right-wing news media. It goes on to say (most importantly) that: "it also underscored a schism between the network’s news-gathering operation and one of its biggest stars: the conservative commentator Sean Hannity". Again, the news portion of FOX is a reliable source but like other cable news, the pundits are opinion. Oh, and The Washington Times did apologize and retract per this Vox article. I find the allegations that Fox News did something irreversibly wrong to be very disconcerting, and I do hope the closer of this RfC takes those misrepresentations into consideration. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• The elephant in the room is that we always are coming back to Fox NEws because editors on all sides willing ignore NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM, rushing to put in breaking stories and commentary, or what I've seen called "hyperjournalism" (its gotten worse with how we've covered COVID) We can be up to date, but our up to the minute coverage should stick to bare facts and have nearly no coverage of anything controversial until that story has had a chance to go through the news cycle a few times (eg like the Rich story, or as an opposite example, the
  Covington MAGA hat kid from last year which has ended with egg on the WaPost and others' faces) We shouldn't be including any commentary from journalists or experts unless its actually part of the story (eg Trump's comments on mail-in ballots leading to Twitter's fact check leading to Trumps EO on Section 230 fully qualifies in the article on Section 230). But we have both new and experienced editors going around rushing to fill these in as soon as they happen. Now, I agree that short term, if I was pulling info from NYTimes in the short term compared to Fox News, I'd have less a concern, but if we were properly waiting until the "long term" (a few news cycles out), it is much much easier to realize that we can treat Fox News (the news desk, not the pundits) as an RS, but that with information from the multiple news cycles, we have a way to apply UNDUE appropriate to know if actually need to include them. Most of that time, that is "no", as they are usually repeating the same basic story from other good sources. This is in contrast to Daily Mail or Breitbart that under the same conditions, we'd have NOTHING usable because we simply outright cannot trust their material. This is how we can justify Fox as an RS but still respect that it's probably not going to be used often due to UNDUE, but we need more editors aware that respecting the principles of NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM will avoid having Fox being pushed as hard as a source (since ideally, we won't be seeing as much liberal opinion as quickly as possible either). --Masem (t
  ) 19:21, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Masem, that's a very good point. Guy (help!) 12:22, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  With all due respect to

  WP:RECENTISM. We cannot put 100% of our trust in online headlines and the instant news that follows those headlines, regardless of who is publishing it. The NYTimes' own executive editor brought to light the "unmistakeable anti-Trump" coverage. Perhaps WP editors who are anti-Trump themselves do not see anything wrong with the NYTimes being anti-Trump, and therein the problem lies. It is unequivocal bias, the same as it was when the right disliked Obama because it is politically motivated partisanship. In my Signpost Op-Ed this month, I added a link to the discussion with Ted Koppel who did an excellent job explaining the problem. It is real, and it does exist in internet, cable, broadcast and print political news media because we are dealing with a different era in journalism. ^Atsme _Talk 📧

  21:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, I don't disagree that RECENTISM should apply equally to all sources and better to wait to add to judge when we have a better concept of the full picture, have most corrections in place, etc. For example, apparently the NYTimes took the analysis of Bolivia's elections possible fraud at face value that lead to Morales' loss (NYTimes was not the only thing going on). Now obviously, WP wasn't a part of that, but I mean, that situation or the MAGA Hat cases are examples that our most trusted sources can still be wrong in the short term. But were I to bet on which source would be less wrong in the short term, between the NYTimes and Fox? My money is on NYTimes. --Masem (t) 22:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• @
  the bounds of brevity. Please amend the statement (not necessarily that line) to be less verbose, so that it will once again be listed on the RfC boards. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk
  ) 23:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: Sorry about that, is the amended version better below the word limit? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you Yes, it's displaying properly now. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• An additional comment: some of the views expressed in the discussion seem to equate finding Fox unreliable with having a liberal bias. I would point out that there are many much more serious and factually reliable conservative news sources, such as National Review, The Federalist, The Bulwark, The American Conservative, and Reason, to name a few. None of these will exhibit characteristics such as the tabloid tone and shock headline attributes of Fox. BD2412 T 04:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  Please don't call Reason conservative. They favor legalization of all drugs (including crystal meth and heroin) legalization of prostitution, zero restrictions on immigration -- 100% open borders with no border patrol or DEA -- immediate closure of every US military base outside the US, no tariffs or trade restrictions, and equal marriage rights for gays. Those are not positions conservatives support. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  Whether you consider Reason conservative is entirely based on whether you consider American Libertarianism a branch of conservatism. Personally, I would say so. Being within the loosely defined blocs of Liberal and Conservative certainly does not imply universal agreement. Devonian Wombat (talk) 07:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Guy Macon: Reason is unquestionably conservative with respect to fiscal and economic policy, and minimizing government intervention. There is, of course, variation within conservatism that deviates from those principles in the service of empowering government to maintain notions of traditionalism, but the specific positions taken are highly liquid. Incidentally, opposition to gay marriage is no longer really a conservative position. Republicans are now just as likely to support gay marriage as to oppose it (including President Trump, an unwavering gay marriage supporter, for which he has been given little credit). Fox News itself has been called out by activists for becoming too pro-gay marriage. BD2412 T 15:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Slightly off-topic, but the American Tea Party movement is a good example of strong fiscal conservatism with neutrality on social conservatism. There's a bit of detail on this at Social conservatism in the United States#Electoral politics. Here in the United Kingdom, the Conservative Premiership of David Cameron legalised same-sex marriage, amongst other non-socially-conservative things. Capewearer (talk) 16:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• While they overlap in some areas, no reasonable person considers US Libertarianism to be a branch of US conservatism. Again, legalizing heroin, opening up the borders, defunding the police, and solving the problem of prayer in government schools by getting rid of the government schools are not positions that are widely popular among any branch of US conservatism. I could also argue that abolishing the income tax, removing all restrictions on firearms, and closing down the FDA and FCC are not positions that are widely popular among any branch of US liberalism.

Related: World's Smallest Political Quiz.

Please note that I hold US Libertarians in the same low regard as I hold US Democrats, US Republicans, and US Greens. The greens and libertarians just haven't had the opportunity to disappoint us yet. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm...so basically, you don't like US politics. Here on Bonaire, my needs align more with the Blue party. In the US, I'm up and down...

just not that into it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧

23:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• BD2412, Oops. The Federalist just got banned from Google's ad platform due to publishing disinformation about BLM. [92] Guy (help!) 20:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  • That is actually not what that article says (ZeroHedge was banned, while The Federalist was merely warned, apparently over "comments"), but even so, The Federalist remains some number of levels more reliable than Fox News. BD2412 T 20:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

    BD2412, a low bar indeed... Guy (help!) 21:09, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

    Guy, Zero Hedge is unreliable, we already know that - they said the protests were fake, and had already demonetized that part of their site (probably a video). The Federalist case was different - they were simply warned about monetizing race-related content which Google deems a violation of their monetization policy. NBC News stated: "The Federalist published an article claiming the media had been lying about looting and violence during the protests. All Google is doing is appeasing a British nonprofit group and preventing Google customers from earning clickbait revenue from Google placed ads. Look at the NBC misleading headline: Google bans two websites from its ad platform over protest articles - so what does it all actually mean? Google told The Federalist to demonitize (probably page ads and video) which means no clickbait ad revenue from Google for that content. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

    Atsme, that's a very idiosyncratic presentation. No, they are not "appeasing" anybody. They have policies, a pressure group noted that the Federalist was violating those policies, and that Zero Hedge was publishing fake news while violating those polices. Google checked, agreed, and took action.

    Early reports conflated the two. Most have now been updated to correctly reflect the different actions taken. Guy (help!) 23:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Exactly - "Early reports conflated..." - that's why we have WP:RECENTISM & NOTNEWS, and why this RfC and the comments that conflate politcal commentary with Fox News are just plain wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atsme (talk • contribs) 08:32, June 17, 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - It's an example of a massive double-standard on here that the UK-based Daily Mail was effectively banned but primarily US-based editors on here feel unable to apply the same logic to Fox News, which shares all of the DM's vices and virtues. FOARP (talk) 09:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • DM - and to be fair on the US - Breitbart - has been shown to actually falsify information to get the story they want. Fox News (the news side) may bias and swing a story's details to tell a specific angle to a story but we don't have yet anywhere close to the massive scale of falsification. (Misreporting with later redactions do not count because that we expect out of an RS). --Masem (t) 12:46, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
    • And it turns out that Fox has been fabricating too - David Gerard (talk) 15:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• They all do it, David. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo - left-leaning media are not unlike the right because they are all spewing political commentary right on their front pages. CNN chooses to call their pundits "news journalists". The first sentence in the Don Lemon lead tells our readers that he is "an American television journalist" whereas Sean Hannity is "an American talk show host and conservative political commentator." Now look at Rachel Maddow - "an American television news program host and liberal political commentator." Wolf Blitzer, another inaccurate description of a political commentator vs journalist or newscaster/news anchor. Politico's Jack Shafer was on target when he wrote: "Singling out Blitzer for a thrashing does not exonerate the other cable news anchors—their crimes remain under investigation. The Situation Room and other less-bad CNN prime-time programs—Erin Burnett Outfront, Anderson Cooper 360° and CNN Tonight With Don Lemon—churn through their time slots lighting news fuses that promise fireworks but often deliver duds. Once you start viewing these CNN programs as talk shows about the news in which hosts interview reporters, “specialists” and newsmakers, and not as news programs, per se, your journalistic expectations recede." Fox News Channel defines their political commentators correctly and keep those shows separate from the news, but based on some of the comments above, several editors are still conflating the two, perhaps because they are not well-versed in the operations of television networks. I think PEW nailed it with their June 2018 survey, Between Factual and Opinion Statements in the News. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:54, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• As you've been told several times,
  WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a convincing argument at Wikipedia. We're talking about this thing, not other things - David Gerard (talk
  ) 08:19, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• As you've been told several times... - wow, David, that sounds awfully bullyish. I'm not some child who has to be told anything. I welcome reminders - none of us are perfect - and you can certainly disagree with my position, but unless you can quote a policy that forbids such use of comparisons, you're just stating opinion, and I will continue to use comparisons to demonstrate the need for consistency in support of NPOV when making decisions as important as this one, and to overcome political bias in the decision-making process, perceived or otherwise. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:RS is being applied only when it's politically convenient. -Thucydides411 (talk

) 14:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The statement above ignores a fundamental difference: "... trying to exclude Fox News for its failings, while ignoring the failings of equivalent news sources (CNN & MSNBC) that have very similar failings."

For CNN & MSNBC, such "failings" are a "bug", IOW exceptional errors they immediately correct. For Fox News, such "failings" are a "feature" of their modus operandi. Unless called out on a large scale by myriad other major sources, they will not correct the error, and other extreme right-wing media do the same. That is a major difference between left-wing media and right-wing media. The left uses fact-checkers and corrects errors, whereas the right ignores fact-checkers, attacks fact-checkers (Trump told his supporters to not believe fact-checkers), and persistently uses propaganda as a tool, even when it has been proven to be false/fake.

Fox News is no longer just a right-wing RS we can use. It has slid to the far-right (CNN is considered slightly right-wing by the rest of the world) and is focused as a tool of Trump, with a "Trump-Fox News feedback loop" (search that term) that is documented as a phenomenon. Here is just one article. There are many. -- Valjean (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Your argument is similar to others, all of which have been successfully disputed throughout this discussion. The oppose iVotes appear to be very partisan in nature, and have failed to produce any evidence that supports downgrading Fox News as a generally RS. Our own WP article describes our left bias, Ideological bias on Wikipedia#Bias in Wikipedia content in relation to US politics, and that is what we need to fix and what I believe we are doing now to preserve and maintain a NPOV for the benefit of the project overall. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Atsme, no, they do not fabricate stuff. They may spin, and they may make mistakes. Fox News has been literally photoshopping a guy with a gun into images of otherwise peaceful protests. That is fake news. Guy (help!) 20:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• JzG, they actually do, including the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winning stories. Remember Janet Cooke and The Washington Post who returned their Pulitzer? Do the research, Guy. You once told me I was naive - uhm, no. It's not me. After over 35 years in & out of newsrooms, tv studios, post production, artwork & layouts, typesetting - I am not the least bit hesitant in telling it like it is while backing it up with RS to support my position which I just did. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, this is exactly the problem. A reporter at NYT faked reports (quite common). This was detected by the Times and he was pushed out. With the Fox pictures, they are still defending them and there has been no action, that we know of, against those responsible.

  And then there's the false and misleading stories on COVID-19, and climate change, and the many other instances.

  You can excuse thema ll away one by one if you like, but in the end the pattern is clear and systemic and entirely in line with the academic research that shows Fox News to have joined FNC in using an agenda-driven, not fact-driven, model. Guy (help!) 21:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Guy, my views align more closely with Masem. I'm not making any excuses - I'm simply stating facts. After reading your essay, I'm of the mind that we will probably find ourselves in disagreement more often than not so I'm going to leave it there. I've got plenty of work to do helping to reduce the AfC/NPP backlog which keeps growing. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:31, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

There's no evidence yet - and I'd love to be proven wrong - of the news content (not headlines, not photos) coming from the reporters and checked by the editors out of the Fox news side of intentional/malicious fabrication as was clearly shown on the DM/Brietbart cases. That would be a slam dunk in closing this against the use of Fox News. But everything listed above that is claim of Fox fabrication is either being due to Fox's bias (not fabrication but presenting in a specific angle which RS does not judge but cautions about when NPOV comes along), corrected stories (of which we can play mind games of whether these were intentional or not until pointed out), or simply outside of the news-desk editorial content, like the Seattle picture stuff. I'm trying to be the devil's advocate (literally, almost) here - There's a lot of personal and other reasons that people want to see Fox News demoted from reliable, and I would tend to agree that net result, but we need to prove the case out on this, otherwise, any weak rational can come back to bite us in the future ("You demote Fox for fake headlines, CNN has done fake headlines..." type logic). And that's why I'm point out that even with Fox news still considered reliable, UNDUE drives away from its use as a source when other sources covering the same event exist. --Masem (t) 13:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• I am of the same opinion as Jimmy Wales on this..."You shouldn't really use Wikipedia as the sole source for anything, ever. You shouldn't use anything as the sole source for anything, in my view."^[43] Wikipedia is an Anglo-American encyclopedia, and so it values western opinions/references/sources and denounces other news agencies as "government controlled/funded", when it is clear that American and British journalists either toe the line and use government press releases as fact, or they are ostracised. What I am saying is that every editor must be careful, what they are publishing, for instance, Bolivian coup. Every western news organisation shouted out "election fraud", only for MIT to state (months later) "There is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find,” wrote John Curiel and Jack R Williams, both from MIT, adding that the conclusions of an audit by the Organization of American States “would appear deeply flawed”.^[44]. My message, be very sceptical of western news agents (BBC, CNN, Fox), as much as eastern news agents from China or Russia.SethWhales ^talk 15:35, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  +1 - I'm on the same page, Seth Whales. As several of us have repeated over and over again, comply with WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS and exercise caution toward all news sources in today's clickbait environment, especially political news which in and of itself is subject to the biases of the authors/journalists/publishers. If we had been adhering to our PAGs, this issue never would have been brought up, much less noticed - it would have disappeared in the anus of internet history. Correction was made/published by the news source - end of story. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Deprecate Fox News for AMPol2. We don't save a source because only two out of a dozen+ of its hosts are good. When it's accurate, other sources should be used. Speaking only of Fox News, not its talking heads, with the exception of Shep Smith (consistently good, but no longer at Fox) and Chris Wallace (he occasionally dares to do the right thing), Fox News should be deprecated for politics. Those two hosts are the rare exception that proves the rule. The other hosts in the newsroom are generally unreliable.

Fox employees leaving the company have described the "newsroom" (not just any room) as "an extension of the Trump White House."[93] The situation is worse now, to the point where the influence of Fox News and Fox & Friends on Trump and the GOP cannot be ignored. The tail is wagging the dog:

"Fox News is no longer the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is the legislative arm of Fox News." -- David Atkins, Washington Monthly

Deprecate it for AMPol2, which is not a total ban. When Wallace and others are accurate, they can still be used for politics, but we only know that by comparing them with other sources, so we should generally use those sources. (The rest of the hosts should be blacklisted for politics.) -- Valjean (talk) 15:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• A lot of people seem to be citing Politifact's ratings on Fox News to prove that they are not reliable. They claim that 60% of Politifact's ratings for Fox News are completely or partially false. This is not a good way of analyzing the reliability of a news source, because it is very clear that Politifact websites doesn't factcheck absolutely everything Fox News reports. Also, I heard an editor say that 44% of Politifact's ratings for NBC are completely or partially false. If Politifact's ratings are the reason that you think Fox News is unreliable, you should also think NBC is unreliable.
  talk
  ) 20:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I would remind editors we are discussing Fox news, Just Fox news. Whataboutism is not a valid argument.Slatersteven (talk) 17:39, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

All corporate-controlled news media, manufactures consent on behalf of their corporate donors/sponsors. Whether it be pro-Republican (Fox) or pro-Democrat (CNN & MSNBC). GoodDay (talk) 15:00, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Picture manipulation by Fox?

Just saw this tweet, claiming blatant photo manipulation by the Fox News site. It's 2am here - is anyone here familiar with the originals? If true, this sort of practice would rule out Option 1 - David Gerard (talk) 00:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard and David Gerard: here's another source:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fox-news-runs-digitally-altered-images-in-coverage-of-seattles-protests-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone/

BTW, your comment ended up in the wrong section, so I moved it here. I hope you don't mind. -- Valjean (talk) 03:50, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, there have been several examples of this in the past, a few of which can be found in the article Fox News controversies, though there are a few others that didn’t get enough coverage to be due there. I sort of agree that this should preclude Option 1 to some extent, as this isn’t a regular occurrence from other outlets, but it happens periodically with some degree of regularity with Fox. I would presume a lot of people are !voting “Option 1“ based on the Fox News of a decade ago, or are simply unaware of these kinds of things. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 04:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I mean, pictures shouldn't be considered as part of the story written by the byline of the author of the article. That's some guy trying to illustrate the paper, and just like headlines and anything else outside the article should not be taken as representative of what passes the editorial desk. It is clear example of the bias that Fox will try to do which, as I've commented below, usually makes their covers just unnecessary to include when other more RSes are covering the same thing if we are taking cautious steps in applying NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM. --Masem (t) 04:28, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't buy this excuse. Making stuff up is making stuff up. OK, headlines should be disregarded and not cited—for example, I have seen a false headline in a very reliable paper (

Times of Israel), albeit it was quickly fixed. Deliberately falsifying images, however, is falsification and my standard for deprecation is "deliberately and consistently reports falsehoods." buidhe

06:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

It was a montage - most people familiar with images can see that...but it appears Fox competitors are scraping the barrel to find fault. Life goes on. It's not half as bad as publishing images of children in cages and falsely claiming it was Trump when the photos were from the Obama administration, and worse, promoting a presidential nominee who lied about it. Again, as I've stated above - exercise caution, comply with

WP:NOTNEWS. Follow our PAGs and we'll be fine. ^Atsme _Talk 📧

15:25, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Come off it. They're blatantly and intentionally lying. This is beyond the pale. Stop apologizing for liars. oknazevad (talk) 15:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

A “montage”? Is any other reliable source characterizing it this way except Fox News itself? Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 15:42, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The desk jockies that write headlines for CNN and other sites are just as bad in terms of writing clickbait titles (there's a whole case around Lawrence Lessig and the NYTimes just over a bad headline, despite the article content being legit). [94]. (Whether that suit will develop into anything we don't know, just the point that headlines are written without the care of the body of the articles). This happens across the board, but since we don't use headlines or pictures or picture captures as "reliable" because of the fact they are written outside the editorial process, this type of manipulation should not be counted against the reliability of the reporters and editors above the Fox News desk. Bias of the overall work, heck yes. --Masem (t) 17:19, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The more respectable and reliable conservative sources that I mentioned in the previous section—e.g., National Review, The The Federalist, The Bulwark, The American Conservative, and you can throw in The Wall Street Journal—wouldn't be caught dead engaging in tabloid practices like this. Considering the fact that Fox's prominent posting of this panic-inducing image coincided with one of the worst stock market drops of the year, I would think that Wikipedia should definitely avoid linking to such content. Perhaps the best solution would be some means of examining potential uses of Fox as a source on a case by case basis, with a consensus-based process to vet individual news articles for propriety before using them. BD2412 T 17:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree those sources would not manipulate photos like that, but again, we're looking to what is usable by WP, the article content, not the photos or headlines. That they do that type of manipulation should put up a big caution that they are biased outside the newsdesk and thus when applying UNDUE for inclusion, that weighs heavily against them. That's how you apply consensus on a case-by-case basis without eliminating the use of Fox for most other topics where there are few issues with their reporting, and without applying "not reliable for X topics" which always get plagued with debate if that's used. I know it seems earlier just to say Fox is not an RS, but the evidence is not there for that... But we have ways to work around the problems of its bias as long as consensus-based processes build on NPOV are used on case-by-case. --Masem (t) 17:45, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

- Please...see our WP article

Photo manipulation##Use_in_journalism. I would think the montage was used to depict different events in one image, such as the protestors in the images published by The Detroit News which shows armed protestors. Armed - with guns. First of all, Tucker Carlson, the subject of the tweet in this particular discussion, is not a newscaster, rather he is a pundit so why are we having this discussion at all, David Gerard? Hannity is also a pundit and he also addressed the gun toting protestors. There are pictures in the article I linked to with the caption Armed men weapons in the Senate gallery on Thursday, April 30. (Photo: Craig Mauger, The Detroit News) but there are also other images with gun toting protestors. Are you saying there were no guns, and the image is a false depiction of the protest? ^Atsme _Talk 📧

17:46, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Please...see our WP article

Photo manipulation##Use_in_journalism which is a subsection of the section "Political and ethical issues", and links to Photojournalism#Ethical,_legal,_and_social_considerations. You're providing evidence against your own position here. Photomanipulation in this manner is a deprecation offense - David Gerard (talk

) 17:57, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

What newscast used the image? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found the retraction which states: Editor’s Note: A FoxNews.com home page photo collage which originally accompanied this story included multiple scenes from Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” and of wreckage following recent riots. The collage did not clearly delineate between these images, and has since been replaced. In addition, a recent slideshow depicting scenes from Seattle mistakenly included a picture from St. Paul, Minnesota. Fox News regrets these errors. If you're talking about deprecating based on that, then a whole lot of once considered RS are going down with it, including the AP, [95], and so is LA Times, National Archives, well...here's a short list. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:33, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Even their "correction" was false. It was not a collage. It was a photo-shopped image inserting a weapon carrying person into the image to push a false narrative that the POTUS is pushing. O3000 (talk) 19:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The correction was not false - and what "false narrative" is POTUS pushing? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:08, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• All of them - of all major networks, despite claims to the contrary by others, FOX is the only one whose main network coverage is specifically regularly factually inaccurate. While MSNBC or CNN may have programs that are informed by a Talking Head, or their news and op-ed can become amalgamated because modern reporting has become that way inclined (with US media in particular), FOX is the only news source that openly leads with journalists that aren't journalists, repeating conspiracy theories from the internet in live bulletin and stories that are not listed as opinion. This isn't a Tucked Carlson issue, this is objectively bad journalism across the board with terrible editorial decisions being made - the kind of decisions that lead to Piers Morgan losing his job in the UK, but lead to very little in the US other than defence of the behaviour because of WHATABOUTISM because of the perception that the largely centrist position of reality is to the left of the general perception of the average conservative American. As Colbert once said, "reality has a well known liberal bias". FOX is the only mainstream network where it is clear that entire topics are handled by partisan groups that are different to the core journalists that they actually have in their employ. It's why they can challenge the president for factual inaccuracies on Monday and appear legitimate, but still be publishing their own factual inaccuracies for days after until surreptitiously changing their articles without indicating what has been later altered. Most reliable networks publish their "corrections" openly. FOX is well documented for failing to do so, and often allowing their affiliates to continue using the incorrect versions of events in their broadcasts even while amending their incorrect news articles. Koncorde (talk) 05:22, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• This isn't necessarily an issue that's exclusive to Fox. MSNBC, for instance, has been caught deceptively editing recordings to portray figures in an unflattering light. Take this, when they deliberately presented Mitt Romney comments out of context, or this, when they spliced together George Zimmerman's 911 call to make it sound like he was racist. JOEBRO64 12:01, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Two wrongs do not make a right, and this is a rather more incendiary situation than Zimmerman's.Slatersteven (talk) 12:05, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
    • ...what? Why should we treat Fox differently than other outlets that are guilty of similar manipulation? MSNBC was just caught last month doing it again with William Barr; it's been a recurring issue with that network for years. As some users, like Ad Orientem, Atsme, and Thucydides411, said above, I think some editors are treating Fox differently because it has a political slant they don't agree with. JOEBRO64 14:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
      • I can only speak to my perspective on this, but I think part of the issue here is the frequency with which both this issue arises, and the frequency with which there are multiple factual errors in their reporting, and how skewed the presentation is, including “news” programs such as Bret Baier. As well as the general reluctancy to highlight omissions and errors. It happens more often with Fox than with most other mainstream sources. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 15:01, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Because faking pictures of people carrying guns at a time when there are troops (even if they are Saturday afternoon ones) paroling the streets of some cities and the president calling for the army to intervene is rather more serious in its potential repercussions and thus should have been dealt with with far more care. Also Otherstuffdoesnotesxist is an invalid an argument as
        wp:otherstuff. As well as (as I already said) just because wee do not prohibit X does not mean we should not prohibit Y (rather its an argument for also prohibiting X). And to add, this is fox news, not commentary or chat shows. One of the argument is has always been "But its not Fox news that does it", guess what...it does. Moreover No its not because they are right wing, its because this had the potential to inflame a very very dangerous situation (and , by the way, the Daily Mirror is not right wing).Slatersteven (talk
        ) 15:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

      TheJoebro64, MSNBC is an opinion broadcaster. We've long recognised the difference between Fox News and FNC; in the same way, we recognise the difference between NBC and MSNBC. The difference here is that there are multiple images, and they were used by Fox News, not FNC, to promote a false narrative around the Seattle protests. If Fox had put their hands up, we might be able to have a conversation aboutt hat, but their apology amounts to "sorry we got caught". They have not acknowledged the underlying problem, still less undertaken to do anything about it. Guy (help!) 09:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  TheJoebro64, If there's a pattern of MSNBC doing this I would also support it being rated generally unreliable at an RFC. buidhe 16:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as a journalist, the manipulation is an egregious violation of photojournalism ethics, and the lack of a proper retraction that acknowledges that the original images were manipulated makes the issue massively worse. This is a perfect example of why option 1 is unacceptable. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:21, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Apparently not just one image, and not just run in one segment, and so obvious they had to know [[96]].Slatersteven (talk) 17:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, this is an absolute slam dunk. Literal fake news. Guy (help!) 09:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Here [[97]] is the edited report where they have removed the image, note they do not actually admit it was faked. So no they are not owning up to it.Slatersteven (talk) 18:08, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Retraction statement: Fox News in a statement said it "regrets these errors," specifically for not clearly delineating between the images. Can we move on? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

That is not a retraction, they do not say "we used fake imagery" do they?Slatersteven (talk) 18:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

IN fact I would go further, by not admitting the picture was fake they are (in effect) saying it was genuine.Slatersteven (talk) 18:19, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, don't go too far - see my comment above. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I would, the image was a cut and paste job, and they stand by its authenticity by not admitting it was faked.Slatersteven (talk) 19:12, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

That "retraction" does not acknowledge that the original imagery was manipulated. This makes the error far worse, not better. So no, we should absolutely not "move on" — this is a clear current example of the kinds of problems Fox News has. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

There is little question that the final image - the armed person in front of the Seattle shot - was designed to manipulate the reader to think that the SAZ was being patrolled by armed militia-like people. But is the image itself "manipulated" ? Adding a clearly second image atop a first ("count the pixels" may seem trite but the cut-off elbow is an obvious sign this wasn't anywhere close to trying to be a pixel-perfect digital manipulation) I will agree with what is said from the NPPA in Seattle Times' report [98] that they needed to have marked that from an ethical standpoint, which is the key problem here when we talk about bias; even if they had that statement, that's still a very biased combination of elements designed to manipulation the average reader's thinking. Other sources have done this before: File:OJ_Simpson_Newsweek_TIME.png the infamous case of Time darkening the photo of OJ for example. This is why we ignore headlines, section titles, photos, and other incidental materials as part of what we consider "reliable" for any reliable source, because that's a whole different editorial team from the people writing and editing the news, all designed to draw the reader's eye, for any work. I will still argue that this bias from Fox can be used in most problematic cases to eliminate it as a source when UNDUE is taken into account, but no need to touch it as an RS source (from its news desk, obviously not from its opinion side) --Masem (t) 19:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) WaPo stated: "The misleading material spliced a June 10 photograph of an armed man at the Seattle protests with different photographs — one also from June 10, of a sign reading, “You Are Now Entering Free Cap Hill,” and others from images captured May 30 of a shattered storefront and other unrest downtown." The retraction is self-explanatory but WaPo further stated that Fox News explained there is an "editor’s note appended to three online articles" which I've already provided. In this case, the man with the gun was standing in front of a car at CHAZ on June 10th during the Seattle protests (the David Ryder image). His image was digitally copied, and photoshopped into the Fox montage and into another image to show him standing beside the CHAZ sign. That is typically handled by a separate dept. such as artwork & layout for the website. That's where online publications can get in trouble unlike newsprint which afforded the publishers more time to prep and check, and even then it wasn't 100% foolproof. The image of the man with the gun is real per the Seattle Times: The June 10 photo of an unidentified man with a gun standing in front of a car in CHAZ was taken by Seattle freelance photographer David Ryder, who distributed the photo through Getty Images. Fox News retracted it as responsible news networks are expected to do. It's a done deal. Somebody is probably going to be fired or moved to another dept., which is typically what happens in such cases. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:28, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

And what about the image of him also standing in front of a smashed shop, how did they explain that? Or the one oh the same bloke, in the same stance standing next to a free zone sigh?Slatersteven (talk) 10:23, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You keep repeating the same thinig over and over - look at the Seattle Times article - it is explained in detail with the photos. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

[[99]] "Fox News is one such media outlet that published a series of articles on how the Seattle 'autonomous zone' has armed guards and local businesses are being threatened with extortion, and how the Seattle Police has been urged to take back control from "brazen, anti-cop anarchists." "One image shows the armed man standing in front of what appears to be a smashed retail store".Slatersteven (talk) 17:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

However, social media users were quick to notice that the images in all the Fox News articles had one thing in common – they all featured the same armed white individual wearing a bulletproof vest and holding an assault weapon. After some digging, users discovered that Fox News had photoshopped the image of the armed guard into all of its images to portray a more "dangerous" situation in the self-declared autonomous zone."

• Seems to me this is rather serious. We have the POTUS claiming that antifa is involved with the demonstrations and declaring that antifa is a terrorist group. We have the Seattle police saying this might spread to other cities. Then, Fox publishes a fake photo seemingly supporting Trump’s claims. All of this together pushes an image of the country under siege by armed terrorists starting a violent revolution. This is in a heated atmosphere, in a country with guys with AK47s waiting for a race war. O3000 (talk) 20:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Photos are ALREADY considered unreliable for use as a source. Blueboar (talk) 20:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, yes (although I can't actually find a guideline to that effect). But, suppose a source fakes a photo of Trump starting the fire behind the church that he held a bible in front of. Would you continue to support such a source as reliable? Headlines are often exaggerated. But, actually faking a photo to push a conspiracy theory favorable to the POTUS that a "news" source has consistently supported is beyond the pale. We have to draw a line somewhere. O3000 (talk) 00:19, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Its not about using the photograph(S)it is the fact that it was a lie broadcast on fox news (and other parts of the Fox empire). Its the fact it shows they make shit up.Slatersteven (talk) 10:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I just read this entire thread and carefully looked at the webpages/images referenced. The obvious "lying by Photoshop" and the weaselly retraction that failed to acknowledge that they lied by Photoshop made me change my opinion of Fox News from "Use with care" to "Generally unreliable for facts, events, interviews and quotes." Those images shown at [100] raise the question: if Fox News is willing to mislead me about where a particular person carrying a gun and wearing a green mask was standing, how can I trust anything else they present to me? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

So let's now declare that all RSes that uses clickbait and misleading headlines be also "generally unreliable" which is all of them including the NYTimes, if you go that direction. Pictures, like headlines, are not part of the reliable content we are judging or can use in WP. This is why we have that line being drawn. --Masem (t) 13:17, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

This was not a headline, click bait or otherwise, it was included in multiple programs across Fox.Slatersteven (talk) 13:45, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

It is still part of the content outside of control of the actual editorial control of the news desk. Its stuff we as editors can't use as part of a topic. If we want to make reliable sources be responsible and reliable for all content they publish - headlines, photos, etc. - so be it, but that would affect many "normally RS" sources which I don't think is the goal here. --Masem (t) 13:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

What Fox news has no control over what photos they include in a news broadcast? Christ I could not view the Seattle time article and so assumed the picture I could see was a mock up by the Seattle times because it was such an obvious fake. When I saw in fact what I assumed was a joke at foxes expense was actually what they had tried to use (not once but multiple times) I had no choice but to change my choice. Sorry but "no one even thought "this looks a bit off" better not use it" becasue "well its not MY job to think" is not a defence.Slatersteven (talk) 14:01, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Consider what parts of a Fox News broadcast we'd use within articles presuming they were reliable - we can only use what is said by the anchors and any quoted text from video interviews or news clips. What's said by the anchors is copyproofed text from the news department, which is what we're looking at here, and nothing implies that the clips and interviews are being tampered with (outside of cutting them to show Fox's bias). Now, if Fox News was playing with splicing or deepfake game with interviews during those segments, that the equivalent of the DM falsification that we can work from to deprecate Fox. --Masem (t) 14:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

"President thingywobble was not seen at a press interview" cue fake picture of President thingywobble shaking hands with a child rapist "and the white house has not answered our request for clarification of where he it", yes a picture can be used to mislead whilst the words do not, its called a dog whistle. This is my last word here, we should not use news organisations that actually fake content, not even dishonestly edit, actually fake it.Slatersteven (talk) 14:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, that might carry some weight if the news desk had issued a statement and demanded disciplinary action against the person responsible. Not seeing any evidence of that.

This lends credence to the theory that Shep Smith was the canary in the mine. Guy (help!) 21:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, devils advocate here: when other RSes have screws up like this like Time's OJ picture/etc. have we expected them to call out the person responsible? RS demands editorial control which, even as a stretch here because the photo side is outside the news department, still happened, but does it require appropriate disciplinary action? There's clearly a huge weight of bias to want to tip Fox news into deprecation, and certainly enough of these things that it would seem easiest to be done with it by doing so, but we're going to have people come back to this case and use arguments we're setting here against other RSes to argument for their deprecation over and over and over again, so lets make sure that we are doing it.

The other route, which is circular but would be a lot easier to say why Fox needs to be deprecated, is to modify RS to not only talk about editorial control, but where appropriate, particularly for a mainstream source, adherence for journalistic ethics. Of which the list of misdeeds by Fox (from its news team) starts to grow incredibly long, while leaving little of our main RS untouched. It might take a way a few other sources that are biased that don't show ethics (which I would sort of demand/expect in the AP2 field if we went that way) but I would guess at the benefit of putting Fox into the deprecated category this would be an acceptable loss, to speak --Masem (t) 21:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

On the question of where we talk about headlines not being an RS, Wikipedia:A headline is not a reliable source this essay came out of discussion last month [101] that we all agreed headlines were not RSes from past discussions we never really codified that. --Masem (t) 13:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Rushing to judgment on the basis of one recent incident (in which Fox News issued corrections) would be very unwise. Letting momentary outrage drive long-term decisions on which sources are
  reliable source. I'm sure that there wouldn't be a widespread call by Wikipedians to rule out the Washington Post anyways, because the Washington Post's editorial slant aligns much better with the views of most Wikipedians than that of Fox News does. -Thucydides411 (talk
  ) 14:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You could always nominate it and see.Slatersteven (talk) 14:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I don't see how that WaPo story was "false". They correctly reported what officials said. I don't see how WaPo faked anything and they made no claims in their own voice. A far cry from digitally altering a photo, and claiming another was from a different city. And let us not pretend this was "one recent incident". Fox is on this page on a regular basis. O3000 (talk) 14:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

That's a bit like when Fox News makes absurd statements, phrased as a question. The Washington Post's article repeatedly says that Russia hacked the utility, but appends some version of "officials say." In fact, I recall arguing with editors at

Russian interference in the 2016 United States election

(including some of those who have responded to me here) back around that time about these very sorts of claims. There were many editors were insisting that these sorts of claims had to be stated in Wikivoice, because the US intelligence agencies are reliable, and also arguing against interpreting many of these statements as claims made by officials - but rather as claims made by the Washington Post and other newspapers. For example, take this sentence in the Washington Post article:

The penetration may have been designed to disrupt the utility’s operations or as a test by the Russians to see whether they could penetrate a portion of the grid.

That sentence appears to state, as a fact, that the penetration occurred, and back then, I'm sure those generally arguing for inclusion of as much Russiagate material as possible would have argued that that statement should be interpreted factually (for an example, take a look at this discussion).

The Washington Post's article spawned a whole spate of articles in other news sources, with titles directly stating that Russia had hacked the utility. BBC: "'Russia hacking code' found on Vermont utility computer". Reuters: "Russian hackers penetrated Vermont electric utility - Washington Post". Politico: "Vermont utility confirms system breach by Russians". NBC News: "Vermont Electricity Department Finds Malware Linked to Russian Hackers". Boston Globe: "Vermont utility finds malware code attributed to Russians". The Washington Post did not do basic due diligence on the claims made by the officials, and those claims were debunked by others within days, leading to the Washington Post to correct some - but not all - of the false claims made in the article. If you were only to read that one Washington Post article and the editor's note at the top, you would not know that the malware involved is widely available to hackers - not just Russian state hackers.

In other words, the Washington Post uncritically presented the claims of government officials, and appeared to repeat their claims in its own voice in places. That led to widespread coverage claiming - as a fact - that Russia had hacked the utility. The story then fell apart after basic inspection, which the Washington Post had failed to do before running the article, and the Washington Post never fully corrected the article. But that one incident (and it's not the only from that time involving the Washington Post, including the infamous "PropOrNot" article) should not lead the Washington Post to be listed as unreliable. Making decisions based on individual stories like this - especially in the heat of the moment - is bad practice. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Surely WaPo is not responsible for what is published in other sources. The WaPo article appears to be correct as it repeatedly attributes, as they should. O3000 (talk) 20:18, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

In the sentence I quoted above, they did not clearly attribute the statement. But more than that, the Washington Post failed to do even basic verification of what the government officials were telling it, and the story collapsed within days, once other news agencies approached the story with greater rigor. Yet the Washington Post never fully corrected the article. I don't see how you can view this as anything other than a failure to live up to basic journalistic practices. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides, that argument is an example of the kind of dumbfoundingly vacuous cherrypicking that is at the core of this RfC. Are we ready to have editors falsely and routinely hold WaPo's 150+ year record on a par with Fox? Just about every website posts at least a sizable percentage of fact. Today it is Sunday. It may rain next week. If that's your best shot, we are never going to reach consensus above option 3. Please try to make comments that do not deny the central issue. SPECIFICO talk 15:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: That's a great demonstration of a particularly egregious failure on the part of the Washington Post. On the other hand @SPECIFICO:, your reply is, to use your own words, "an example of the kind of dumbfoundingly vacuous" approaches some editors take towards civility, which is not only required by policy here but also useful in life. Surely there's no need to scrape the bottom of the barrel. -Darouet (talk) 03:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is getting closer to election time in the US, right? I'm of the mind that the upcoming election might be part of the reason for the repeated attempts to eliminate Fox News as a generally RS, and with such vengeance vehemence in a try-and-try again effort to reach what has been an elusive result. I have provided the following quote as an aside to the fact that Fox News has been the #1 rated cable news channel for 18 consecutive years,^[45] much to the dismay of their competitors and political opposition; many of whom continue to throw stones at Fox News from glass houses.^[46] I would have cited the NYTimes or WaPo instead of Forbes for Fox's rating but lo and behold they did not publish even a blurb about it, which speaks volumes as to why we should not eliminate or downgrade all of our RS, like Forbes and the Washington Times, based purely on political bias. Anyway, the following is quoted from a literature review in the International Journal on Digital Libraries. It made me go "Hmmm..." so I thought it was important to share it as part of this discussion in the event political bias might be a factor in this RfC, unknowing or otherwise, and if it is, then at least now we are better able to understand why:

"Not all frame analyses focus on the text of news articles. For instance, DellaVigna and Kaplan analyzed the gradual adoption of cable TV of Fox News between 1996 and 2000 to show that Fox News had a “significant impact” on the presidential elections. Essentially, the study analyzed whether a district had already adopted the Fox News channel, and what the election result was. The results revealed that the Republican party had an increased vote share in those towns that had adopted Fox News."^[47]

^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, this is an odd edit. The study you linked to does indeed say that Fox has had an undue effect on elections. It also stated that Fox was significantly slanted and that Fox viewers were the most uninformed about the Iraq War. So yes, we are trying to reduce dependence on an unreliable source as per guidelines. So yes, it is getting closer to election time in the US, right? But, your claim that those efforts to stop using a bad source is based upon “vengeance“ is a violation of AGF and CIV and completely ignores that they simply don’t like usage of bad sources, while you think you are on the side of goodness to continue usage of a source your own citation criticizes so heavily. O3000 (talk) 00:44, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I corrected it - that was not the word I originally intended to use. I'm actually done here. Happy editing. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 03:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Lately I've noticed a tendency to appeal to dictionaries in cases like these. O3000 you might like to look at the definition of "with a vengeance" to understand how (at least in modern English) this is an impersonal expression. A lot of people are having trouble identifying what is and isn't civil these days. I've noticed it seems to depend a lot more on status than on fact. Not sure if that's what happened here, but I thought it was worth providing some expert testimony from a trusted source. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 05:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme already changed the wording. O3000 (talk) 14:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

OK how about this [[102]]?Slatersteven (talk) 18:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Or [[103]] "Fox altering the images without any disclaimer was “terribly misleading.”".Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Further evidence of recent malign behaviour by Fox News

Comment I came here to point out the self-same doctored fake news story as the one discussed above after having voted (above, option 3) some time ago. The Fox News fake-photo debacle is one of a long line of disgraceful truth-evasion on behalf of Fox's editorial standards. They are the American Sputnik, and I have great difficulty understanding why so many people disagree with/are blind to/ignorant of/overlook this. (Delete as appropriate.) Here, though, is yet another instance of Fox`s

• The Fox “News” Lie: Fox's “news” side pushed misinformation every day for four months straight, Media Matters.
• Fairleigh Dickinson University: What you know depends on whatyou watch:Current events knowledgeacross popular news sources. Found that study participants who watched Fox News we less informed than people who watched no news [104].
• Nelson, Jacob L. (January 23, 2019). "What is Fox News? Researchers want to know". Columbia Journalism Review.
• Benkler Y, Faris R and Roberts H (2018) Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press.

Climate change (Fox News)

• Science or Spin?: Assessing the Accuracy of Cable News Coverage of Climate Science, Union of Concerned Scientistis 93% of global warming coverage by the Fox News Channel was misleading
• Climate-Challenged Society, Oxford University Press. popular media outlets in the US that make no pretense of balance objectivity in their attempts to advance denial, such as Fox News
• https://www.citizen.org/article/foxic-fox-news-networks-dangerous-climate-denial-2019/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=52dbcd4f-2756-4284-973a-7fe06c039cd5 Public Citizen: Fox News Network’s Dangerous Climate Denial 2019] Of the 247 segments, 212 or 86% were dismissive of the climate crisis, cast warming and its consequences in doubt or employed fear mongering when discussing climate solutions. and “Tucker Carlson Tonight” ran the most climate denial segments with 41 or approximately seven per month, followed by “Hannity” with 32 and “The Five” with 29

COVID-19 (Fox News)

• How Right-Leaning Media Coverage of COVID-19 Facilitated the Spread of Misinformation in the Early Stages of the Pandemic, Oklahoma State University, University of Pennsylvania, Carleton College In this paper, we report the results of an automated content analysis showing that right-leaning news outlets (e.g., Fox News, Breitbart) were more than 2.5 times more likely than mainstream outlets to discuss COVID-19 misinformation during the early stages of the U.S. pandemic response.
• The data is in: Fox News may have kept millions from taking the coronavirus threat seriously

"Three serious research efforts have put numerical weight — yes, data-driven evidence — behind what many suspected all along: Americans who relied on Fox News, or similar right-wing sources, were duped as the coronavirus began its deadly spread.

Dangerously duped.

The studies “paint a picture of a media ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and others,” wrote my colleague Christopher Ingraham in an analysis last week."

Valjean (talk) 14:54, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

No Go Zone anti-Muslim conspiracy theory (Fox News)

• No-Go Zone Conspiracy Theory, Georgetown University Bridge “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in;” (at the time of the interview, Birmingham’s population was 80% non-Muslim). — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Cummings (talk • contribs) 10:07, June 14, 2020 (UTC)

Discussion 2 (Fox News)

• Comment - I previously hatted this discussion and it was reverted. The reason for my action was because this entire section is irrelevant to the scope of the RfC, and a waste of editors' valuable time. The first source, which is a biased progressive opinion source, briefly mentions the Fox newscast bias, and goes on and on about the Fox News Channel's talk-shows and political commentary that has nothing at all to do with the Fox News Channel's newscasts. Every other source/analysis/poll included after that first source are irrelevant to the RfC because the scope encompasses only the Fox News Channel's political commentary and talk-show pundits, not the newscasts. Hopefully this explanation will save editors from wasting any of their valuable time on off-topic opinions that have no relevance to the RfC. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 03:05, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Given that you've started literally positing a conspiracy against "conservative" sources operating on this page, at this stage you're
    WP:RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS and probably aren't someone who should be telling anyone else what to post - David Gerard (talk
    ) 15:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @David Gerard: I agree. The constant accusations of editorial bias is a personal attack and must be stopped (for some reason the accuser(s) don't realize their own bias can be seen as the reason they are defending Fox News.... How odd! They shouldn't cast stones.):

"Using someone's political affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views, such as accusing them of being left-wing or right-wing, is also forbidden. Editors are allowed to have personal political POV, as long as it does not negatively affect their editing and discussions."

It is the lack of accuracy and pushing of political and scientific pseudoscience, IOW pushing counterfactual content and narratives, that is the reason we don't like Fox News. Hey, someone in the news media has to do this propaganda job (that's the nature of the beast), and instead of leaving this job to the most extreme right-wing sources, Fox News has joined the fray after Trump's rise to power (which happened largely because of them as his propaganda voice). Editorial bias has nothing to do with our opposition to Fox News's inaccuracy. That is their own doing. -- Valjean (talk) 15:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I've stated several times now that I do not consider any of the cable news channels particularly reliable, and though it's completely irrelevant, I'll just mention that my political biases are extremely different from those of Fox News. However, it does appear clear to me that the reason why there is a push to exclude Fox News specifically as a source - as opposed to CNN and MSNBC, which are on a very comparable level of overall reliability and political bias/partisanship - is because the bias that Fox News exhibits does not align with the views of most Wikipedians. Wikipedia should have a consistent policy on reliable sources, which means that either all three major American cable news channels are reliable, or all three are unreliable. Taking an inconsistent, politically biased approach to

WP:RS will just serve to tilt articles. -Thucydides411 (talk

) 09:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Since you clearly missed the nuance, let me spell it out for you, Fox News has been inaccurate on multiple occasions. They made their platform available to pundits who have been wrong on multiple occasions. I recommend either you read the comments carefully to avoid making blatantly pointless accusations or just not say anything that might be viewed as accusatory. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

You have to distinguish between opinion (e.g., pundits) and news articles. Politically motivated reporting is not a peculiarity of Fox News, however - CNN recently ran an interview with Susan Rice in which she claimed the violence at protests over the killing of George Floyd might be instigated by Russia: [105]. All three major American cable news channels (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC) are questionable, and should be handled similarly. Treating the news articles on their websites as reliable is a reasonable policy. Opinion articles and opinion shows are definitely not reliable. It would be reasonable to class broadcast news reports on all three channels are unreliable (as opposed to articles on their websites), in my opinion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, have a quick look at the Ad Fontes chart. https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ - notice that it distinguishes CNN.com from CNN Cable, and Fox News from FNC. We also make this distinction. We distinguish NBC from MSNBC, because, yes, we all know that cable infotainment is not the same as real news.

Fox News (as opposed to FNC) has been considered reliable up to now. What's changed is not us, it's Fox News. It's now rated less reliable and more biased than the Daily Mail.

Fox now blurs the line between its editorial agenda and its news reporting. The canary in the mine was Shep Smith. The doctored images of Seattle were on Fox News, not FNC. Fox has changed. Guy (help!) 16:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

What makes Ad Fontes reliable? The doctored images of Seattle were on Fox News. Fox News issued a correction, which is one of the things we look for in reliable sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411: You've several times repeated your assertion, All three major American cable news channels (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC) are questionable, and should be handled similarly. without giving any reasons or explaining why they should not be differentiated based on the evidence under discussion. Can you give us several examples, instances of Fox making an error biased against Trump and the Right and then issuing a correction? Or is it all the other way -- Right-leaning bias in prime time and then a correction buried elsewhere? Thank you. SPECIFICO talk 18:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, no they did not. They mumbled something about the home-page photos “did not clearly delineate” the splicing together of multiple images from different locations. That's a "sorry we got caught". In a responsible news org, the editor would have been fired or at least disciplined. Guy (help!) 20:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "mumbled." They posted written corrections at the top of the articles and changed the images. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Lets all lay of the PA's, and assume good faith.Slatersteven (talk) 09:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, Slatersteven. Let's stick to the facts as follows: WaPo returned a Pulitzer because of a fabricated story they published, and so did the NYTimes. See this diff for the links to the stories. Why haven't we demoted or even deprecated those 2 sources considering they were actually reporting the news, and not opinion or political analysis? For news & statements of fact, they cannot be trusted after those two major screw-ups. How can we ever trust them again, especially after the past 3 years of them pushing a Russian collusion story - using anonymous sources and unverified material - misleading their readers/audiences - and winning more Pulitizers for getting it wrong? Fox News Channel was one of few who did not promote the Russian collusion story - the talk-shows (political commentary) investigated it and found zero collusion. They got it right and everybody got it wrong. They also got the 2016 election right - but that was analysis/opinion/commentary not news. Shepard Smith was a Fox news anchor and he stated: “The Fox News poll did have President Trump losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton and the Fox News poll was accurate,” he said. Of course, factually he was accurate because that is what the poll stated, but the polling prediction was wrong. We may not agree with what they're reporting, or their POV, but that doesn't make them unreliable. And yes, they're biased - so are all the others. A Fox News Channel employee recently made a bad decision in art & layout when they used photoshopped images as artwork to depict a scene and enhance a story, and for that you want to demote the entire Fox News Channel as unreliable? How often has ABC screwed up and aired fake photos? And CBS, and on and on. What the broadcast did was actually news. What Fox did was garnishments - art depictions on their website. Deadlines cause mistakes and that is why we should closely adhere to RECENTISM & NOTNEWS. If we had, this would not be an issue because it was quickly removed. No...Fox News is not anymore unreliable than any of the other news channels. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Your point is fifty long comments now. Many are the same thing rephrased (like propping up instances of center-left journalists who've been wrong, like it's a 1:1 exchange of "bad Cillizza tweet" to "X claims Hillary killed Seth Rich" articles.) There's no reason be so passive aggressive and smarmy. As the OP mentioned, the vote favors Fox News and my understanding is nothing will change. Your criteria is a blank check that performs terribly as a discriminator function, which is part of why others were criticizing you. Thanks to

User:Snooganssnoogans for the janitorial work, it's appreciated. Wunderkiwi (talk

) 02:28, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

^^^Note to closer: This user has 13 total edits.^^^ ^Atsme _Talk 📧 12:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

^^^Note to Atsme: I'm new, I know. That's why I chose not to vote and just left a comment instead.^^^ Please respond to my content rather than my edit count. We've already established that it's simple to rack that number up on talk pages. Wunderkiwi (talk) 01:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Good work on the And you are lynching Negroes argument. This RfC is about Fox News so all you could really do was to prove how other journalistic institutions got it wrong in some instances instead of proving the arguments wrong about how Fox News has diminished in their role as a source of reliable journalism. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

QEDK, please explain your comment and to whom you've directed it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 12:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: It's very clearly directed at your arguments in the wall of text (which is something you already knew given your talk page posting, so let's not be ingenuine here). There's nothing to explain, I recommend you read the wikilinked page and understand what I was saying, if you still don't, the second sentence of my paragraph is simple enough to explain that kind of argument. --qedk (t 愛 c) 12:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I am offended by your comment, or that you would even use such a racist analogy. Fox News Channel is currently rated as a generally reliable source - and until proven otherwise, that is how it stands, and from what I'm seeing in the iVotes, it will remain a generally reliable source whether we like it or not. Your insult and use of lynching is unbecomming an administrator. You should be desysopped for making such a comment on this noticeboard. The sentiment that has been displayed here about conservatives and racist comments like yours do not belong here. I advise you to strike your racist comment. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 12:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC) *Adding references verifying the word "Negro", singular or plural, is considered a racial slur: University World News, Public Opinion Quarterly, AP style, Slate, WaPo, BMJ.^{21:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)}

I don't think you understand what's racist and what's not, and unfortunately I don't have the time or effort explaining the multitude of levels you're wrong on. I was not the one who came up with this analogy so perhaps you should take it up with Soviet propagandists who did and while you're at it, also understand why I said your argument was fallacious and calling people racist without a) any knowledge of their race or personal life, b) any evidentiary proof that they are racist, is the most offensive aspect about all of this. I'm going to leave this here and you can resume your name-calling if you please. --qedk (t 愛 c) 13:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFF" argument. wbm1058 (talk

) 15:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Answering because you pinged me, @Wbm1058:, I chose to say it because that was the basis of Atsme's argument. Maybe it would have been less colourful (commenting on arguments is not inflammatory) but it would also have been inaccurate, since Atsme's point was a variation of the tu quoque fallacy and borderline whataboutism. Similar to how the Soviets used the terminology to deflect criticism of their own wrongs, Atsme is using the wrongs of other journalistic institutions to deflect criticism of Fox News (which very ironically gives platform to racist pundits) — so no, it was not denigrating Russians either (that is how the catchphrase is used). I never said that Atsme made racist comments, I said that they (implicitly) labeled me a racist, racist comments like yours..., ...advise you to strike your racist comment..., which is again very ironic given my predisposition. I have always tried to comment on the content and not the contributor and in this case, I've also done the same. So to hear that I'm a racist and I made personal attacks, I'm baffled. In any case, Atsme is free to attack me in any way they deem necessary, I don't mind. Good day. --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

QEDK mentioned me in his comment above so for the record, I am replying to his false allegations and masked pretense that I was attacking him or labeling him a racist. Quite frankly, he is not telling the truth as evidenced in this very discussion, and he continued to cast aspersions against me in his reply to Wbm1058. I was going to let it go as of 15:45 on 18 June 2020 (UTC), until I came here this evening and read his appalling accusations about me which he made at 17:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC). What he said in this diff is what started it all, and it speaks volumes. He purposely picked that title and used those words inline to form an integral part of his sentence to me, And you are lynching Negroes; the wikilink simply served as a CYA for him because nothing I've done or said even comes close to what's in that article or his allegations. No - he framed it that way on purpose to imply that I'm racist, and he did it again in his comment above, wherein he obliquely implies that I'm racist for "deflecting criticism of Fox News (which very ironically gives platform to racist pundits)". QEDK is open to recall, and he should be recalled because of his behavior. ArbCom has desysopped admins for less egregious violations of CIVILITY. I have said all I need to say here in my defense against his false accusations and inexcusable behavior as an admin. Editors are welcome to provide further input on my UTP. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

So are you taking it to

WP:RSN is absolutely not the venue for this comment, and your behaviour appears very like an attempt to filibuster this discussion - David Gerard (talk

) 23:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme:, your umbrage is misplaced. Your comments are the first ones that implied racism, with a direct frontal accusation of a racist attack on you, one which did not happen.

@QEDK: is correct when they stated: "I never said that Atsme made racist comments, I said that they (implicitly) labeled me a racist, racist comments like yours..., ...advise you to strike your racist comment...,.." I don't see them making any kind of racist comment or racist accusation against you. They used a famous example of the tu quoque fallacy, which you have been using, and also mentioned "borderline whataboutism", which you also use in your arguments. That was their point, and your response immediately derailed and deflected from their point by implying directly accusing them of accusing you of racism. I don't see it. You need to calm down and retract that accusation. We need less heat here. -- Valjean (talk) 04:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

logical fallacy, which attempts to deflect criticism (of Fox News? of Atsme?) by referring to racial discrimination and lynching in the United States. You have congratulated (accused, assuming sarcasm) Atsme of deflection by referring to racial discrimination and/or lynching. I don't think you can point to a diff where she did that. Yes, you said that Atsme (implicitly) labeled something as racist. That's what someone making the "and you are lynching Negroes" argument does. That is what Atsme is very upset about. I'm still trying to assume good faith, that this was just tone-deafness on your part. "Overt racism, foolish racism, or tone deaf racism? Take your pick, it's still racism," (Fox & Friends draws ire). Please commit to never linking to that "and you are..." page ever again in a talk page discussion on Wikipedia. – wbm1058 (talk

) 18:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@

WP:CENSORSHIP). It's offensive enough that you justify editors calling other editors racist (even if implicity) without proof but even more so when you use a public forum to shame me for tone-deafness when in reality, Atsme has repeatedly twisted my actual arguments to suit her agenda. Atsme has no authority to hat comments which oppose her viewpoint and you haven't seen me do the same to stifle her viewpoint, have you? I'm quite sure that if I did so, that would be immediately become a point of contention but it's absolutely fine because Atsme did it. If you don't want to respect other editors, that's fine, just don't play the "racist" card when you don't understand context. I have nothing but utter respect for most editors and this is the sort of thing that stretches that respect. So, I'll be straight with you - just because "you" think something is racist (or any arbitrary opinion) does not mean that's the reality. Similarly, just because Atsme was upset about me quoting a tu qoque catchphrase after she twisted my comment on her content to be an attack on herself - does not mean that's the reality. At any point of time, Atsme is more than welcome to begin a recall process or arbitration case against me instead of accosting me to trial at her talk page. And to be honest with you, I don't even want to discuss this anywhere but if I'm compelled to do so, I will. Best, qedk (t 愛 c

) 19:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

This seems like a quit while you are ahead situation. You don't seem to understand the deeply offensive concerns over what you said. You should of let the situation be defused and kept it under a hat. I suggest you re-hat this before someone else does. PackMecEng (talk) 19:04, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Since you clearly don't get it, citing a fallacy literally cannot be offensive, and just because the original catchphrase itself contains a word racist in modern contexts does not mean the comment itself can be or should be construed as racist. These are really basic things and just because Atsme twisted the intentions of my words has no bearing on how I meant it, in fact, I have repeatedly stated how the argument was used and how Atsme used it - Wikipedia is not

WP:CENSORED ffs. Your definition of "ahead" is even more condescending - because I'm the one who gets attacked repeatedly and somehow I'm also the aggressor who is ahead. And please do hat your own comment (and only yours) since you believe that that is the correct way to defuse a situation, I have no qualms with your approach. Best, qedk (t 愛 c

) 17:05, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, the everyone else is wrong and just don't understand me defense. Simple and worthless. Don't do that, it is a bad example for others. Listen, if everyone or even a large portion of people are saying you are wrong, perhaps you could take some introspective and consider their viewpoint and not just assume they do not know what they are talking about. So are you sure you will not reconsider the path you seem hell bend on going down here? You really seem to have an issue understanding what you are doing and why others have such an issue over your comments. PackMecEng (talk) 20:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, the everyone else is wrong and just don't understand me defense. Well no, I only said you are wrong. Again, maybe you're just bad at understanding. In any case, it's absolutely understandable for people to get swayed with Atsme's call to action, I've personally seen people defend her time after time even after she casts accusations and aspersions by truckloads (refer to Awilley's sanction et al.) - so, I don't care about getting chastised by her mates on the wiki. I also totally understand how the argument can be misconstrued, but it cannot be misconstrued after I explain my intent and usage, and the usage of the fallacy thereof, and after my apology for causing her distress. You also realize how quickly this shifted from being about Atsme's comment and more about mine? I wonder how, and no points for guessing the correct answer. You are more than welcome to continue this here but I won't be spending a second more of my time explaining myself to people when they have no intention of listening, so you have a g'day. I'm done. --qedk (t 愛 c) 21:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I can understand that, when you are wrong you really only have two choices. Double down or admit you are wrong and try to fix your mistake. It would of just been nice if you went the fixing your mistake route though rather than doubling down on the everyone is wrong but me. Oh well, perhaps it will be a learning experience for you in the future. Have a great day! PackMecEng (talk) 21:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not "everyone", only a few allies. Others disagree with you, including myself. If you examine all the diffs, as I have done (just to be sure I didn't miss something), you'll find that there was never anything related to racist accusations on the page until Atsme did it herself and derailed the discussion by her bombshell reaction and essentially implying @QEDK: is a racist. QEDK could not have been accusing Atsme of anything related to racism with that link to the article (thus showing her reaction was unreasonable), and the very wording of QEDK's posting shows that the racial aspect of that article was not QEDK's focus. That is an article, FFS! QEDK was just using it as a well-known example of the same logical fallacy used by Atsme multiple times on this page (tu quoque). That was QEDK's point, and Atsme didn't see it, but took umbrage to it, which was not the right reaction.

Even after explanations by QEDK, myself, and others who understood QEDK's intentions, Atsme, Wbm1058 (who has totally misunderstood what happened), and yourself refuse to AGF. That's not right. Atsme has still not stricken the strong personal attack on QEDK of making "racist comments", IOW strongly implying they are racist. That's just wrong. She should have AGF and not resorted to personal attacks. She is the one who cast aspersions, not QEDK, and the over-the-top calls for desysopping are just beyond ridiculous. Our admins have a tough enough job as it is, without such personal attacks. -- Valjean (talk) 23:53, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, please drop the stick. This side discussion should be hatted as not helping the discussion. O3000 (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah you are probably right, would you mind hatting it? PackMecEng (talk) 00:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Hah, wouldn't know where to start. Besides, I'm prob'ly too involved. O3000 (talk) 00:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with it being hatted, but @QEDK: should also consent. -- Valjean (talk) 00:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Fox News: reliability in context

In the RfC responses above, the New York Times was invoked several times as something of a 'gold standard' RS. With that in mind, I ask editors to consider a comparison of Fox News with the following:

• New York Times: we were wrong on Iraq Sources for the Times reporting were the Pentagon and an embedded reporter named Chilabi. From Slate "Because the Times sets the news agenda for the press and the nation, Miller’s reporting had a great impact on the national debate over the wisdom of the Iraq invasion. If she was reliably wrong about Iraq’s WMD, she might have played a major role in encouraging the United States to attack a nation that posed it little threat."
• The NYT printed a false claim and has not corrected it after 10 months. Per Newslinger "Following up on my correction submission to The New York Times, I have not yet received a response from the NYT, and "Trump Shares Unfounded Fringe Theory About Epstein and Clintons" has not yet been amended". The claim serves to exonerate Clinton from ties to Epstein's island, and in so doing, smears victim Virginia Giuffre as a liar. (And since the recent Netflix special, Giuffre is no longer alone in her allegation.)
• The NYT printed an inaccurate statement from Joseph Backholm, one of Tara Reade's corroborators, and did not respond to a request for correction. So, if Backholm is interviewed again he can potentially be discredited for having changed his story. The Times (May 31) article has: Joseph Backholm, who said she had told him about an assault by an unnamed senator when they were students together. However, "Backholm says that Times inaccurately reported details he told them ("She didn’t provide any details and didn’t say it was a senator") Backholm texted back to Lerer."*. In a tweet dated May 26, Backholm stated she told me that while working in DC she had been sexually assaulted by "someone you would know."*
• The NYT stealth edited their investigative piece on the Tara Reade allegation against Joe Biden on behalf of the Biden campaign, removing a caveat from their summary.* According to Fox News, The Times originally reported: "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable. The final sentence was removed because the Biden camp "thought the phrasing was awkward", per Ben Smith.*

I have yet to see anything comparable to these examples from Fox News. What am I missing? petrarchan47คุก 22:49, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Studies on the reliability of Fox News? --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 23:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

From what I've observed, editors are saying that Fox corrects their mistakes. Is this not true?

In your list, nothing even remotely compares with

fake news that led to a deadly war.petrarchan47คุก

23:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan, your emphasis on the WMD and the New York Times seems besides the point. The vast majority of US news outlets, including Fox News, posted uncritical WMD coverage both before and after the invasion of Iraq. What sets the Times apart is that it issued a retraction, not the error itself which was also made by most of its peers. Newimpartial (talk) 23:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

All other news based their reporting on the NYT, who got it from 2 sources, one of them was the Pentagon. (Isn't this called propaganda?) "Jack Shafer writes the Press Box column for Slate and he has been calling for a reexamination of Miller’s work for more than a year."* Less than impressive. petrarchan47คุก 03:01, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree that I emphasized it, in fact I personally find most egregious the Times lack of response to requests for correction, and the fact that they took editorial advice from the subject of a sexual assault 'investigation'.

Imagine if we discovered Fox News looked into one of the rape allegations against Donald Trump, and that after 19 days of diligent work, concluded that he had a pattern of behaviour worth noting... but then received a call from his office stating that he didn't like the way it sounded, so Fox edited their report exactly as Trump requested. Now imagine that they did this without alerting readers. This is exactly what NYT has done, and I am still waiting for a similar example regarding Fox. petrarchan47คุก 19:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, they have a correction system in place, but it's used woefully inadequately (see e.g. [106][107][108]) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:40, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, thank you for this. "Inadequate" is actually a step up from what I've personally witnessed from the NYT, which is "non-existent". petrarchan47คุก 19:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Read

WP:Other stuff exists and drop this. This RfC is about Fox News, not the NYT. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk

16:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, take it to the many folks who've previously invoked the NYT in the RfC above. As I stated, The NYT is being touted unquestioningly as somewhat of a 'gold standard' RS. One good way to gauge the RfC questions is by determining what exactly editors find to be a shining example of good practices, and then compare (in this case) Fox News to it. The NYT comparison is highly relevant. One might even ask, why is this RfC focused on Fox when we have worse, or comparable, behaviour from all similar news sources including the gold standard. petrarchan47คุก 19:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Maybe some people consider NYT a gold standard outlet, but Reuters and Associated Press are better sources imo. I don't think that the NYT's reliability should influence how we rate Fox News or vice versa. buidhe 22:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The only way to evaluate this is in context. At the Biden page, we recently had an RfC where the idea that 'if it isn't printed in the NYT specifically, it can't be added to the page', was used in !votes, and this went unchallenged for the most part. In practice, the NYT is indeed gold standard: the number of times NYT is cited on WP dwarfs that of all other news media ( PDF). If Fox is less problematic and (therefore) more reliable than NYT, then what are we doing here? petrarchan47คุก 02:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think that perhaps part of the hangup is the four levels of reliability offered in the initial post. I certainly don't think that Fox should be deprecated as a source (I have cited to Fox News stories many times myself), and I would agree that a lot of cable news/web news type sources would fall more into category 2 than category 1 in many cases. BD2412 T 22:07, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Right. But if we are to downgrade any of these sources, we should make sure to look at them all. By default, we are considering only Fox which is dangerous in that, as others have mentioned, they aren't less reliable than their counterparts and they often report stories that literally no other outlet (still considered RS on WP) are covering. The requirement for an additional source would often mean content simply can't be added, resulting in a great disservice to readers and a degradation of the project. petrarchan47คุก 02:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that it should be done across the board because all of them in today's clickbait environment require caution. CNN & MSNBC are among the worst, so if Fox is considered a source to approach with caution, then CNN & MSNBC are a step below that. I have not seen any retractions about their biased innuendos and fictitious conspiracies, not even theories that could be supported - they used unverifiable allegations from anonymous sources nonetheless about Russia-Trump collusion, not to mention the FISA warrants that were questionably obtained, and they did this for at least 2 years. Please, convince me otherwise by showing me the retractions, and I'll consider changing my position. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:27, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan, on the WMD, you are presumably aware than in 2005, Fox News watchers were found to be twice as likely to have been misled about the discovery of WMDs in Iraq than those reading print media, and in fact more likely to be so than those taking their news from any other source measured. (source) You don't think that had anything to do with Fox's reporting? Newimpartial (talk) 17:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Uhm, Newimpartial see CISSM, Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Frontline story (2 parts), and The Intercept. There's plenty of blame to go around. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:18, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

My point was not that the NYT didn't disgrace themselves in that instance (they did), but concerning whether Fox News covered itself in glory by contrast (they didn't). Petrarchan was using WMD as an example of how the NYT could not be trusted, in comparison with Fox News, which is a load of high-quality fertilizer if I've ever smelled one (and oh, but I have). Newimpartial (talk) 00:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Clarification requested (Fox News)

This has been raised in passing above, but not clearly answered - what is the scope of this RFC? When we say “Fox News”, what are we referring to? Does it include the news programming of local Fox affiliates (such as WNEW in New York City)? Does it include the Fox Business cable channel (FBN)? What about Fox’s talk radio broadcasting? Or is the RFC limited to just the main cable news station and its associated website? Blueboar (talk) 15:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Local affiliates have separately operated newsrooms, so they're not under this discussion. This is about whether or not the cable news channel's news operations have let their bias undermine the reliability of their news coverage. (I say yes.) oknazevad (talk) 15:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Problem is... it isn’t as clear cut as that. The cable channel will often go to local affiliates for coverage of news events, since the locals have camera crews and reporters on scene. So would that reporting be ok or not? It’s on both local AND cable. Blueboar (talk) 18:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Blueboar: My main focus when calling the RfC was the parts of the Fox News operation that are citable on Wikipedia, i.e. primarily the website and the main cable channel. I added the affiliate question as a response to quieries, but as Newslinger pointed out above, affiliate stations generally are considered to have a separate reliability to the main news operation, and so I don't consider the RfC a vertict on the reliability of affiliate stations. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I also wish to address here why I opened the RfC in the first place. Ultimately including option 4 was not because I was intent on depreciating Fox News, but that the language I chose was a standard boilerplate that has been used in other RfCs. Generally reliable, unclear / additional considerations apply and generally unreliable is a useful standard for RfC, and provides some nuance in the discussion. It is far better than "should Fox News be depreciated" that had previously been proposed. There is overwhelming concensus in the RfC that Fox News shouldn't be depreciated, which I agree with. I should note that I generally don't edit the American politics area at all (check my edit history), and this wasn't an attempt to attack Fox News, I would be happy to see it retain its generally reliable status. The RfC is about arguments not simply a straight vote, so when the RfC is closed it will be decided based on the strength of arguments, so if the arguments against Fox News are bad (which I agree that some arguments in this RfC against Fox News are), then they will simply be discounted by the panel of closers. I think that this article in the Columbia Journalism Review "What is Fox News? Researchers want to know" in probably the most relevant piece to this RfC. It discusses many issues that have come up in this discussion, including the lack of research on the reporting of Fox News itself as opposed to the pundits. Calling this RfC has been a huge learning experience for me, and maybe doing some kind of pre-RfC that was done for Quackwatch would've been better in hindsight. Thanks for your understanding. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Request please could someone list the different 'parts' of Fox News, this would be helpful in differentiating different comments. John Cummings (talk) 14:08, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  John Cummings, I see it as:

  • Fox News;
  • Fox News Channel (FNC), the opinion broadcaster which accounts for most of what people think of as "Fox News" (Hannity etc);
  • Fox local affiliates

  Others may have different definitions. Guy (help!) 14:24, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  I see no evidance that "fox news" is a separate entity from Fox News.Slatersteven (talk) 14:28, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I would break it down with;

1. FNC (the main cable news channel)
2. FBN (Fox Business Network - business news and commentary)
3. Local affiliates (each with a news division)
4. foxnews.com

These are all interconnected... for example: when a story is breaking, FNC may use local affiliate film crews and reporters to cover it (as they are on scene). That coverage may then get a synopsis posted to foxnews.com. Usually, it is the synopsis on foxnews.com that gets cited on Wikipedia, and not the broadcasted footage. Blueboar (talk) 15:10, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Local affiliates do lots of in-depth reporting which is never picked up by the main Fox entities either because its niche (most local content is) or because it isn’t “on brand” (most of the affiliates are significantly to the left of Fox News, that doesnt mean they’re left of center it just means they’re center-right or right, Fox News has drifted far-right). We should be using only the in-depth reporting of news organizations, wikipedia isn't for breaking news of the kind you would cut to a local affiliate for an on-the-scene report from.

Horse Eye Jack (talk

) 20:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

if that answer is otherwise yes and Fox does have some long-term unique and useful content, then we've got the issue that we need to still consider Fox as an RS. --Masem (t) 18:18, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, it's a fair point. My preference is always for analytical reporting anyway, rather than blow-by-blow accounts of events as they happen. I suspect that the instances of in-depth analytical reporting cited to Fox is... low. I won't say it never happens, but most of the content appears to be focused on feeding the outrage machine for another hour. Guy (help!) 10:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm just looking at an option here that considers how much we actually really need to depend on Fox News as a necessary source that we really need to keep given the mass of difficulty of trying to define what part of it is actually reliable and that everything else tied to it seems to be a sinkhole of bad journalism. I do not want a solution that says "Fox News' newsdesk is not reliable", because that has yet to be shown and all arguments being setup for that will come back against other sources in the future if we're not careful, but we can point to the bias that affects its news reporting and ruins the rest of its "news programming" to the point that if we really don't need to use it because we can use other sources for the same information, then great. Not deprecated, just "source to avoid when possible". --Masem (t) 13:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

In other situations regarding low-quality sources, WP takes the strong position that anything notable will be covered in RS, so if your only source is low-quality, then it's not notable. Why not take the same strong position here? In other words, according to this, we never really need to rely on a single questionable source. NightHeron (talk) 13:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I suspect this is how many experienced editors already view Fox. We can't know that they aren't lying to us, except when their reporting is corroborated by more reliable sources, and that makes their use superfluous. I approach them as David Zurawik does Trump: "Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward."

When they do have "completely unique factual information," it's often questionable and quickly debunked by more reliable sources, so we also ignore them in such situations. We treat them as a debunked source, but there are editors who do not do that, so we end up wasting lots of time dealing with such attempts because we can't yet just say "don't use Fox News, because a consensus has debunked it. If you want to use it, you'll have to back it up with multiple more reliable sources if you want us to accept your use of it." Such editors are time sinks because they constantly drink the Fox News koolaid and declare it delicious and just as good as other koolaid, while recognizing there is an enormous difference, IOW they prefer the poisoned koolaid. They can't have it both ways (recognize the difference and still declare both types equally good/bad), but they waste our time trying.

An official debunking would save us lots of time and effort in those situations. Most experienced editors already don't trust Fox News as a source for politics and science because Fox News's pushing of

Trump's proven lies as if they were fact, are all appalling breaches of everything we require from RS. Such failures flunk them for use as a RS. They fail DUE 99% of the time. -- Valjean (talk

) 14:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

From a pragmatist's POV, Fox has reported important incidents that others have failed to report, and they have reported correctly when others have not, and that happens more frequently than we care to admit about today's clickbait political arena where news conglomerates & their echo chambers favor one particular party or candidate over another. And it may very well be that it's a candidate in the same party the news conglomerate supports. There is also the fact that we have individual newscasters with different biases or experienced newscasters that conceal their bias, so are we talking about newscasts or pundits? We have to make that distinction as well. Unlike the other cable sources, Fox News has newscasters from both parties, so that would be another consideration if we are using NPOV to guide our choices and we are actually writing for the opponent. It is not so easily cut and dried that we can just go POOF! and eliminate a generally reliable source because of

systemic bias or policial POV. It has to be done on a case by case basis. If you believe FoxNews will not be cited often, then why are we even having this discussion? We can easily continue doing it case by case per WP:RS, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:NEWSORG, WP:RENCENTISM. ^Atsme _Talk 📧

15:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme: "Fox has reported important incidents that others have failed to report, and they have reported correctly when others have not." I don't doubt the first part, but can you give some examples that proved to be true, when everyone else was wrong (and everyone else then had to self-correct)? That is directly relevant to Wikipedia and its editors, because we should then alter lots of our articles if we haven't done it already.

The rest of us see the opposite being the case most of the time, and often Fox News does not come around. They just stay silent on the issue. That is their pattern. It's a feature, not a bug. They do it on purpose. They create talking points which all their talking heads and news hosts are required to use, and those talking points are often deceptive. We have seen myriad examples where Fox News was proven wrong by fact-checkers and where they ignored the facts reported by all the other major sources because those facts were inconvenient to their/GOP/Trump's agendas and not good for their base to really understand, thus keeping their base in the dark.

This partially explains why Fox News's viewers have been shown to be the poorest informed news viewers, compared to consumers of RS (and to those who consume no news at all). Fox News's viewers (and Trump) openly attack the most informative and accurate ones, like NPR and Colbert Report, which are rated to have the best-informed viewers, and those two sources constantly debunk the errors and false reporting from Fox News. Colbert uses humor and sarcasm to debunk and inform at the same time. -- Valjean (talk) 16:47, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

This is an important, I agree that there are stories that Fox uniquely picks up, but at the end of the day are they really stories that have long-term use to WP?

Keeping in mind that the mainstream slanted-left sources also frequently jump on stories that they cover broadly but end up going nowhere as well (a lot from earlier in Trump's presidency ), so Fox doing the same would not be a surprise to us. I'd rather see if Fox News (national level, not local stations) pick up on non-political stories that do have long-term value that no one else covers. I cannot at all conceive of any such cases right now, and having this cases would be the only reason to keep Fox as an RS over the weight of the other issues that Fox otherwise creates. Or, as I suggest, as long as we call Fox a source to avoid, not deprecated, and when these unique cases come up, that still allows Fox news to be used where appropriate, but still give strong reason to dismiss Fox in the midst of the most problematic cases of political hot-topics. --Masem (t) 17:15, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

(This to NightHeron's) I wouldn't necessarily classify Fox as "low quality", but the amount of burden that is brought by Fox News as a source, as clearly shown by this RFC, creates so many problems that rather than trying to fairly justify that it is still is an RS by our definition (a point I still contend is true), that it makes it a burdensome source that taints nearly every discussion that it comes into play that for the purposes of minimizing disruption on WP, is better to treat as a source to avoid, leaving wiggle room for reasonable use in unique cases where there's no issue with its presentation of material (read: outside political theater and climate change). Practically, it will be like blacklisting it, but rationally its a different approach to avoid having the arguments to be repeated for "we need to blacklist CNN because they did the same thing as Fox!" except that CNN carries none of the baggage that Fox News has. --Masem (t) 17:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I have never used MSNBC as a source. I have used Fox as a source for articles unrelated to politics (broadly construed). I can find no reason to use them for politics. There are Fox articles that would seem not political, but are. For example, lately they’ve run multiple articles about obscure assaults by blacks unrelated to anything. (Example with expected racist comments[109]) There are about 2,400 aggravated assaults in the US per day (more than one a minute); yet they create entire articles about single such events not covered in other non-local sources. I find it bothersome to use such a source for anything even remotely political. O3000 (talk) 18:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

That's exactly the type of extra focus they give that we'd never cover as an encyclopedia. That's the type of articles that Fox covers that may be "true" but never will find a place here. --Masem (t) 18:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

There is no source that is totally unreliable, or reliable. In politics, some sources try to search out and highlight everything favorable or unfavorable about their preferred political positions, and will on occasion be the best and most reliable source. The opinion that anything covered by fox is necessarily either false or unimportant is thesort of extraordinary opinion that would need extraordinary evidence, . The view that many of the stories covered by Fox are less than fully reliable, or are relatively trivial , is a much more reasonable statement. There is good ground for caution with any news source I know in in contemporary (or for that matter, historical) American politics; there are especially good grounds for great caution with Fox in current national politics--but this applies much more to their editorial coverage or some of their columns. Readers expect to see information from all sides of an issue at Wikipedia , and if we do not use the best available sources on all sides we are rejecting NPOV, in favor of advocacy. It's a perfectly reasonable proposition that what is called for at these times is in fact advocacy against those positions favored by Fox-- and I would consider it praiseworthy for anyone who feels that way to do what they believe needful--but not in WP.

If they try to do it here, they're harming their own cause: the people who come here to read political articles are often those who do not yet have a firm position, and come here in the hope of finding truly unbiased information based on our reputation for NPOV. If they come, and find we emphasise only one side of a question, they're not likely to have much confidence in anything they see here. DGG ( talk ) 07:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

In terms of your last point, WP absolutely sucks in between the combination of our policies, practices and current editor makeup and behavior if one is looking to get NPOV on what the "big picture" is on a given ongoing controversial topic if that topic is in any of the big "ArbCom" areas (AP2, IP, etc.). UNDUE is, IMO, misused to try to capture the mainstream press's stance at the moment and eliminate most other views as fringe, when in actuality, we either shouldn't be covering any of those views in the short-term and wait for long-term retrospectives to give us a way to review with neutrality (the better and much easier solution to implement, which in the case of Fox News here, doesn't require us to keep them around), or we recognize that UNDUE should only be applied to evaluate the long-term presentation of sources, and when we're writing the articles while these controversial topics are ongoing, we need to include many more sources including Fox to provide the wider, more neutral picture. This latter, while more helpful to the reader, is also the route that is going to be rife with so much edit warring and disruption. It's just something WP is not well-suited for. (*assume my usual rant on NOTNEWS/RECENTISM applies here*) --Masem (t) 14:36, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, we have a great example of unique Fox reporting just this week: Fox unearthed an audio recording of Jimmy Kimmel (who's already under fire for wearing blackface) using the N-word six times when he was doing a Snoop Dogg impression. Nothing has really happened just yet, but stuff like that has the potential to ruin a celebrity's career. And if it does, that'd definitely be of long-term relevance when it comes to him. Of course, there's potential this won't amount to anything (and if it's proven that Fox fabricated this, which I consider highly unlikely, then I'd agree we should avoid citing the website), but I just wanted to point this out. EDIT: Kimmel just confirmed it's real. JOEBRO64 15:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

National Enquirer may come up with something. So, we wait until an RS publishes. As you have shown, that quickly happened giving us an RS to use.

WP:NODEADLINE O3000 (talk

) 00:47, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The National Enquirer has been first to break a story and turned out to be right multiple times. See 10 Times the National Enquirer Has Been Right: From Michael Jackson to OJ Simpson and 7 Stories The National Enquirer Actually Got Right. That doesn't make it a reliable source. Yes, they were the first to report that Steve Jobs was ill and the first to report that Rush Limbaugh was abusing pain killers, (both correct) but they were also the first to report that in 2016 Hillary Clinton had 6 months to live and the first to report that Prince was diagnosed with AIDS (both bullshit). As Pravda on the Checkout Line points out, "The best propagandists always remember to fold a dash of the plausible into the mix, and here the tabloids excel." When you see something in an unreliable source, you don't know whether it is like the Steve Jobs story or like the Prince story. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:17, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon and Objective3000, comparing Fox to the National Enquirer is a false equivalency. Fox is a legitimate news outlet that broadcasts real (albeit biased) news. The National Enquirer is a supermarket tabloid that publishes anything that will catch someone's eye. If I call the National Enquirer and tell them that Abraham Lincoln faked his death and is actually living it up in Cuba with Tupac and Hitler, then they'll probably publish it. JOEBRO64 12:35, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

You appear to have missed the point. You posted: we have a great example of unique Fox reporting just this week suggesting that as a reason for using Fox. We used National Enqiurer as an example why that’s not a good reason. Actually, it is easier to be first if you are sloppy as you don’t have to take the time to adequately verify. O3000 (talk) 12:47, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not "comparing Fox to the National Enquirer" and I don't believe Objective3000 is either. We addressed the specific invalid argument that, just because sometimes a publication has a scoop that turns out to be correct, that proves that it is a reliable source.

Again I ask, Regarding the images shown at [110], If Fox News is willing to purposely mislead me about where a particular person carrying a gun and wearing a green mask was standing, how can I trust anything else they present to me? (Also see [111] --Guy Macon (talk) 13:10, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

We know that for close to 3 years, Fox got the story right about Russian collusion, and WaPo and the NYTimes went home with Pulitzers...uhm, for getting it wrong? It appears viewers responded unfavorably to the poor news coverage by the big 3, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo and NPR as indicated in this poll. It also demonstrates a stark partisan divide, especially as it relates to FoxNews getting the story right about the Russian collusion theories that were being spread/implied/spun by the other networks in an effort to lock-in their viewers who agreed with the Democrat's POV. The poll shows Republicans stuck with Fox but the credibility ratings for the other networks took a nose dive. It also appears Democrats disliked FoxNews even more for their accurate reporting about the concocted Russian collusion theory, but even their trusted stations took a nosedive. Masem, I'm of the mind that this poll obliquely speaks to your question about Fox exclusives, so I'd say "yes", that it is an important source. As I've said before, we still excercise caution and follow relevant PAGs, keeping in mind they all make mistakes but the sources that retract/correct should be given more weight. I'm calling it a night. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I know you believe all this from your TP. That's why you have difficulties on AP2 articles. O3000 (talk) 01:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

In what universe did Fox "get the story right about Russian collusion?" Some people clearly have an easy time hopping timelines, and I'm stuck in a crappy one with an impeached US president still in office, ceding world leadership to Russia and China while a respiratory virus runs rampant in the Americas and South Asia. How can I get to a timeline with dirigibles and competent political leadership? Newimpartial (talk) 01:49, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I've not at all put any time into trying to follow the Russian interfere story outside of the broad strokes, but even just browsing sources, I'm trying to figure out how "Fox got it right" is there (all current sources have Fox at the center of this web of misinformation to get Trump elected, so...). Even if Fox did get something right, I'll get my NOTNEWS/RECENTISM soapbox out and point out that this is the type of story that in the long run to discuss how the story broke we should be relying on more academic sources like Columbia Journalism Review to know how things fall and who was "right", rather than trying to document at the start, and to that point, Fox again would become less likely as a source, or in my proposed "source to avoid" would still be used if its initial stories were deemed "correct" by scholarly sources. --Masem (t) 01:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I can answer that question. (sarcasm alert) Fox News got "the story right" in the Fox News universe misinformation bubble. By contrast, RS apparently got it all wrong "for close to 3 years", and that's why we have articles here that are considered totally wrong because they are based on RS. In what universe does THAT thinking prevail? One that is not based on RS, but on conspiracy theories, such as the one described here: Russia investigation origins counter-narrative (actually a mashup of several conspiracy theories). In THAT universe, that article is wrong, and those conspiracy theories are considered true. It's a universe where the items described at Fox News controversies are considered actual facts, and not debunked nonsense. It's a universe where the fact, reported by RS (not just Fox News), that the FBI made errors in the FISA applications, suddenly invalidates all the proven facts regarding the Trump campaign's collusion/invitation/facilitation/lying/obstruction/favoring-Putin-rather-than-America/aiding-election-interference, etc. are therefore all wrong, did not happen, and are not true (and if true are okay), just because of some errors. Russia didn't interfere in the election, Trump didn't welcome that help, and it had no influence on why he won. That's the thinking in that universe. It's a strange universe, but if one can defend Fox News, one can also believe what's in the Fox News misinformation bubble. -- Valjean (talk) 06:50, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, *WaPo (op), *The Intercept, *WaPo graphics, New Yorker, *Guardian, *Fox News, *Boston Herald (op-ed), *50 media mistakes, etc. I imagine the Durham report will provide an interesting finale. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 06:52, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Without spending the hours researching the points, I get the impression from all of this that the statement "Fox was correct" is comparable in this situation to "a broken clock is right twice a day". Simply by disagreeing with the mainstream that there was no collusion - not because they actively took steps to show that but simply by denying the points of their opponents on the opposite side of the political spectrum - they ended up being "right". That's not how I would see Fox News being useful, to my point in this section. --Masem (t) 16:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

To ^Atsme - It seems you've misrepresented the Morning Consult poll that you link. From the poll you linked:

1) Among all adults, Fox News came in below: NYTimes, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Wall Street Journal,

2) The WaPo is not included in the poll so I don't why you mention it as being part of the poll,

3) The poll does not mention "Russian Collusion" at all (so it's unclear why you mention it as being part of the poll - it's not),

4) The poll shows that, even among GOP, the credibility of Fox News has declined,

5) On Coronavirus coverage, the poll shows that all adults (including GOP adults) distrust Fox News more than any other media listed and evaluate Fox News as having the "poorest" coverage of all media listed.

The Morning Consult attributes the decline in trust to Trump repeating the same lie, "Fake News" over & over & over for 4 years. Trump often repeats the same lies over & over, not just his lies about "Fake News. I will note here that "Repetition is an integral part of brainwashing." [112] Which reminds me that in 2015 Republican President Ronald Reagan's Domestic Policy Adviser Bruce Bartlett published his detailed analysis of Fox News wherein Bartlett concludes Fox News is a "Propaganda Machine." [113] In his analysis, Barlett reports on several studies that found "Fox viewers are misinformed" and are "more likely to have factually untrue beliefs than those who receive their news from mainstream sources." Bartlett says of Fox viewers, "it can almost be called self-brainwashing – many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth."

Finally, I notice that you've used questionable sources on this talk page such as: realclearpolitics, huffington post, bes-reporter.com, digitalethics.org, washingtonexaminer, and Fox News talking head Bernard Goldberg - so- I figure it's acceptable for me to include the link to Reagan's domestic policy advisor's analysis of Fox News. BetsyRMadison (talk) 19:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

In response to your misinterpretation and wall of text about what I was referring to by linking the poll, that isn't what I said, meant or intended. Try reading it again. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

You posit that Democrats distrust FoxNews because of Fox's "accurate reporting about the concocted Russian collusion theory", which is hyperpartisan flamebait (at best). Can you make at least a token effort to express your views without constant recourse to partisan talking points? They add a lot of heat and no light to the discussion. MastCell ^Talk 20:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:PA, specifically that "some comments are never acceptable", and the first bullet point states, Abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrases based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religious or political beliefs,..., (my bold underline). What are you going to say to him? ^Atsme _Talk 📧

09:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

To ^Atsme - Whether intentional or unintentional, your comments on this talk page includes your use of Fox News links (among other links) to push a false narrative (a conspiracy theory) regarding "Russian collusion" by falsely claiming/inferring 'no Russian collusion.' You strike me as an intelligent person, so it is not clear why you intentionally, or unintentionally, push that false narrative - which by its very nature - is a very dangerous & diabolically false narrative.

For example, you sent Masem a Fox News link (here [114]) that pushes that false narrative in-part by blurring, and thus falsely equating, 'collusion' with 'criminal conspiracy.' To be clear: they are not equal - not in law and not in a dictionary. Not only that, but your Fox News link doubles down on spreading misinformation about the Mueller report - and because your Fox News link spreads misinformation & pushes that dangerous, diabolical false narrative - your Fox News link becomes one more example of why Fox News is not a reliable source. 

This is an encyclopedia, not a blog. It makes no difference what individual WP editor's politics are, what they watch on tv, or where they enjoy getting information -- every single WP editor should call-out and reject the intentional or unintentional spreading of false narratives, disinformation, and misinformation that is found anywhere on this wikipedia website.

To be clear: Mueller did find evidence Trump campaign 'colluded' with Russia, several members of Trump campaign pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their colluding with Russia, Donald Trump Jr colluded with the Russian government via Russian nationals, and Mueller found evidence that Trump campaign "conspired" with Russia. 

• Russian collusion: The Mueller report describes evidence that confirms, yes, the Trump campaign did 'collude' with Russia.  Mueller spent 200 pages outlining “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign" - that's collusion. [115] A few other examples include: several of Trump campaign officials pleaded guilty to "willfully and knowingly" lying to the FBI about their colluding with Russia.[116] [117] [118] And, Donald Trump Jr's emails confirm Donald Trump Jr 'colluded' with Russia and was willing to accept the "Russian Government" offer to give Trump "official High Level Sensitive" that Russian Intelligence gathered "as part of Russia & it's Government's support of Trump" [119]
  
• Criminal conspiracy: Mueller investigation found evidence of 'conspiracy' between Trump campaign & Russia just not enough to prosecute on criminal conspiracy.  Regarding criminal conspiracy Mueller wrote “[a] statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.” [120] As a side bar: Since you speculate on "Durham" - I'm sure won't mind me speculating here: Because Trump obstructed the Mueller investigation, and because Trump was too afraid to testify under oath, we can only speculate as to whether Mueller would have found enough evidence to prosecute Trump & members of his campaign of "criminal conspiracy."
  
• I'd be remiss if I did not mention that, of the Mueller report, even Bill Barr wrote Trump is "not exonerated" and even Barr did not write 'no collusion' [121]

So, given all that, it is not clear why a seemingly intelligent person, such as yourself, would use an encyclopedia talk page to push the false 'no collusion' narrative. BTW: I say "even Bill Barr" because, in Federal court, a federal judge said Bill Barr put forward a “distorted” and “misleading” account of the Mueller report's findings and Bill Barr lacks credibility on the topic. [122]

Once again, The Fox News link you gave to Masem is a Fox News link that pushes a dangerous, diabolically false narrative which makes your Fox News link become one more example of why Fox News is not a reliable source; therefore, your Fox News link is additional evidence that Option 3 and Option 4 best describe Fox News. BetsyRMadison (talk) 17:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I'd consider what I'm proposing here is a new "Option 5" that none of the other options give: Fox should be avoided, not because it isn't a reliable source (we have yet to find the equivalent of clear evidence that was there for Daily Mail and Breitbart when it comes to what their news desk produces), but its the weight of the bias of everything else the Fox network cover that harms that reliability, to the point that Fox is rarely a source that is needed to uniquely cover a topic in the long term so we can safely avoid it (why I asked this hypothetical). Not deprecation (though still the same type of language from Daily Mail, where it is relevant to the topic at hand) and allowance only when it is a last resort for sourcing information that is deemed essential in a topic's coverage. It's a novel approach , and avoids the future cases that if we had ended up calling Fox unreliable without strong proof and only riding on its bias, then we'd have editors in the future trying to turn those tables on sources like CNN (which does have some bias but which is nowhere close to the baggage that draws its reliability down). --Masem (t) 22:09, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

If we aren't brave enough to actually deprecate Fox News, then this "Option 5" makes sense: "Whenever possible, we should avoid using anything from Fox News." This will also send a signal to Fox News to get their act together. -- Valjean (talk) 02:08, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

My Quick Two Cents (about Fox News)

I didn't know this discussion was ongoing or I would have spoke up sooner. Before I start, I am a hard left-leaning, registered Independent, support just about everything the Dems do and say, and loathe Fox News and Trump in every. way. That said, I can do say this neutrally....

Anyway, for anything below a "class C", it might be OK. I would have a backing, secondary reference just in case. Some of their news articles do have a "slant", while some do not. Even if the organization is considered reliable, I would still recommend editors have backing, secondary references on anything they source from Fox News. For any articles that are "Class A" and up (ie: GA and FA), I would not use it. We are going for the best of the best and we demand the best sources. That said, I do have an FA under my belt that uses Fox News as a source for the soul reason as I can't find what I need sourced anywhere else. That was actually a point of contention for one of the reviewers during the FAN. They weren't thrilled with the Fox News source.

So, in short (ie: TL;DR) "class C" rated articles and below, for me it's OK, but there should be a backing, secondary reference. "Class A" and up (including GA and FA), it shouldn't be used. Just my two cents...and my opinion (and you know what they say about those). :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 00:23 on June 27, 2020 (UTC) • #StayAtHome • #BlackLivesMatter