{"id":4736,"date":"2011-06-25T13:41:09","date_gmt":"2011-06-25T20:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4736"},"modified":"2011-06-25T13:41:09","modified_gmt":"2011-06-25T20:41:09","slug":"fox-news-vs-jon-stewart-vs-politifact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4736","title":{"rendered":"Fox News vs Jon Stewart vs Politifact"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last week The Daily Show&#8217;s Jon Stewart appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. The interview included a discussion of Fox&#8217;s well known conservative bias and disinformation. While noting that Fox&#8217;s Washington chief, Bill Sammon, dictated <em>&#8220;marching orders&#8221;<\/em> to the network&#8217;s anchors and reporters (a segment that Fox edited out of the television broadcast), Stewart remarked that <em>&#8220;the most consistently misinformed? Fox. Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.<\/em>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, the non-partisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politifact.com\/truth-o-meter\/statements\/2011\/jun\/20\/jon-stewart\/jon-stewart-says-those-who-watch-fox-news-are-most\/\" target=\"_blank\">analyzed Stewart&#8217;s comment<\/a> and concluded that it was false. This set off a flurry of activity in the blogosphere with lefties defending Stewart and righties hailing PolitiFact.<\/p>\n<p>To be sure, there is room for debate on the matter of Stewart&#8217;s accuracy. Stewart himself accepted PolitiFact&#8217;s findings and apologized. But Media Matters made an excellent case <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/research\/201106220022\" target=\"_blank\">refuting PolitiFact&#8217;s analysis<\/a> and charging that they were making dissimilar comparisons. For instance, PolitiFact cited surveys that measured the civic knowledge of viewers. However, asking whether a viewer knows how many amendments there are to the Constitution is not the same asking whether the viewer believes that the health care bill contains <em>&#8220;death panels.&#8221;<\/em> The former is a civics lesson, the latter is misinformation.<\/p>\n<p>One fact that is inarguable is that Fox is responsible for a great deal of misinformation. Politfact&#8217;s conclusion was strictly literal, holding Stewart accountable for saying specifically that <em>&#8220;every poll&#8221;<\/em> found Fox viewers the most misinformed. That may have been an exaggeration and, had Stewart said simply that many polls placed Fox viewers at or near the bottom of the pack, he would have been correct and PolitiFact would have agreed. On several points PolitiFact noted that&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fox isn&#8217;t last on the list, although it&#8217;s close.<\/li>\n<li>Once again, Fox News as a whole ranked fairly low among regularly used media outlets.<\/li>\n<li>Fox clearly did the worst among the major news outlets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After reporting PolitiFact&#8217;s findings, and apologizing, Stewart made a another attempt to illustrate the point he was originally making with Chris Wallace: that Fox misinforms their viewers, and they do so frequently. He used PolitiFact&#8217;s own research to make this point by enumerating some of the incidences where PolitiFact ruled against Fox News. It was a hilarious bit that itemized them in a rapid-fire fashion. As a public service I am reprinting them here, following the video, for those who wish to take their time to savor the irony:<\/p>\n<table style='font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='512' height='340'>\n<tbody>\n<tr valign='middle'>\n<td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Glenn Beck:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Less than 10 percent of Obama&#8217;s Cabinet appointees have worked in the private sector<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (December 2, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Steve Doocy:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>White House Political Director once served as right-hand to ACORN chief.<\/i>&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (September 30, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Gretchen Carlson:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>The Texas State Board of Education may eliminate references to Christmas and the Constitution in textbooks<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 A <strong>Pants on Fire!<\/strong> liar award (March 12, 2010)<\/li>\n<li><strong><span style=\"color: rgb(13, 0, 208);\">PolitiFact&#8217;s 2010 Lie of the Year<\/span><\/strong>: &#8220;<i>Health care reform is a government take-over of health care.<\/i>&#8221; (December 16, 2010)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Glenn Beck:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>The Muslim Brotherhood has openly stated they want to declare war on Israel.<\/i>&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (February 15, 2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Karl Rove:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>American troops have never been under the formal control of another nation<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (March 29, 2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Brian Kilmeade:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Florida Gov. Rick Scott&#8217;s approval ratings are up<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (April 15, 2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Laura Ingraham:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>The Massachusetts health care plan is wildly unpopular among state residents<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (May 16, 2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sarah Palin:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>There&#8217;s been more debt under Obama than all other presidents combined.<\/i>&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (June 1, 2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong><span style=\"color: rgb(13, 0, 208);\">PolitiFact&#8217;s 2009 Lie of the Year<\/span><\/strong>: &#8220;<i>Health care bill includes Death Panels<\/i>&#8221; (December 18, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Kimberly Guilfoyle:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Cash for Clunkers will give government complete access to your home computer<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (August 3, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sarah Palin:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Halting Gulf drilling costs $8 billion a day in imports<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 A <strong>&#8220;Pants on Fire!&#8221; <\/strong>liar award  (June 3, 2011)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sarah Palin:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Democrats plan largest tax increase in history<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 A <strong>&#8220;Pants on Fire!&#8221;<\/strong> liar award (August 4, 2010)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bill O&#8217;Reilly:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Attorney General Eric Holder was involved in the dismissal of criminal charges against the New Black Panthers<\/i>.&#8221;  \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong>  (July 23, 2010)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sarah Palin:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Obama voted &#8216;present&#8217; in the U.S. Senate quite often<\/i>. &#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (February 8, 2010)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Glenn Beck:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>John Holdren proposed forced abortions and putting sterilants in drinking water<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 A <i><strong>&#8220;Pants on Fire!&#8221;<\/strong><\/i> liar award (July 29, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Glenn Beck:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Labor union president Andy Stern is the most frequent visitor at the White House.<\/i>&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (December 7, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Glenn Beck:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>America is the only country without automatic citizenship upon birth<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (June 19, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bill O&#8217;Reilly:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>O&#8217;Reilly never called Dr. George Tiller a baby killer, only reporting what others called him<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (June 5, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bill O&#8217;Reilly:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Only Fox News picked up that Anita Dunn said Mao was one of her favorite philosophers<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 <strong>False<\/strong> (October 27, 2009)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bill O&#8217;Reilly:<\/strong> &#8220;<i>Nobody at Fox News ever said you&#8217;re going to jail if you don&#8217;t buy health insurance<\/i>.&#8221; \u2014 A <strong>&#8220;Pants on Fire!&#8221;<\/strong> liar award (April 27, 2010)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Is that misinformed enough for y&#8217;all?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week The Daily Show&#8217;s Jon Stewart appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. The interview included a discussion of Fox&#8217;s well known conservative bias and disinformation. While noting that Fox&#8217;s Washington chief, Bill Sammon, dictated &#8220;marching orders&#8221; to the network&#8217;s anchors and reporters (a segment that Fox edited out of the television broadcast), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,15,684],"tags":[116,33,83,908],"class_list":["post-4736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-humor","category-media-bias","tag-chris-wallace","tag-fox-news","tag-jon-stewart","tag-politifact"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-1eo","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4688,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4688","url_meta":{"origin":4736,"position":0},"title":"Has Chris Wallace Ever Watched Jon Stewart?","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/19\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Consider this article the flip side of my November 2010 article titled: Has Jon Stewart Ever Watched Chris Wallace? At that time I criticized Stewart for praising Wallace as a credible journalist despite the evidence to the contrary, which I enumerated in the article. In this interview of Stewart on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25853,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=25853","url_meta":{"origin":4736,"position":1},"title":"Jon Stewart Challenges Fox News To A &#8216;Lie Off&#8217; &#8211; He&#8217;s Gonna Lose","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/26\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night Jon Stewart opened The Daily Show with a commentary (video below) on how his announcement that's he's leaving did not go unnoticed. He took particular umbrage at Megyn Kelly of Fox News for saying that \"he was not a force for good,\" and that \"in his later years\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Go Fox Yourself","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/go-fox-yourself-seniors.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/go-fox-yourself-seniors.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/go-fox-yourself-seniors.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":25560,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=25560","url_meta":{"origin":4736,"position":2},"title":"Jon Stewart Is Leaving The Daily Show &#8211; Brian Williams Is Leaving NBC News &#8211; COINCIDENCE?","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/10\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Breaking News in the Mediasphere: The controversy surrounding Brian Williams has led to an announcement by NBC management that, effective immediately, Williams will be put on a six month suspension without pay. They describe the punishment as \"severe and appropriate\" and leave the door open for a return, although without\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Jon Stewart NBC News","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/stewart-nbc-news.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/stewart-nbc-news.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/stewart-nbc-news.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3126,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3126","url_meta":{"origin":4736,"position":3},"title":"Has Jon Stewart Ever Watched Chris Wallace?","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/4\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"On last night's The Daily Show, host Jon Stewart interviewed Chris Wallace of Fox News. The resulting veneration was cringe-worthy and wholly undeserved. Stewart repeatedly praised Wallace as the lone representative of journalistic principle on Fox News, calling him their \"news guy.\". This makes me wonder if Stewart has actually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29315,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=29315","url_meta":{"origin":4736,"position":4},"title":"Fox News EXCLUSIVE: Jon Stewart&#8217;s Secret Plot To Rule The World (w\/Stewart&#8217;s Response)","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/30\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"When Jon Stewart announced a few months ago that he was leaving the The Daily Show it came as a shock to millions of Americans who couldn't understand why he suddenly decided to give up the program that had brought him so much success and notoriety. After sixteen years of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Jon Stewart Roger Ailes","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/stewart-ailes.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/stewart-ailes.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/stewart-ailes.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6807,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6807","url_meta":{"origin":4736,"position":5},"title":"Jon Stewart Is Driving Fox Nation Crazy","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/6\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It is well known that conservatives have a hard time with comedy. Their attempts at it are invariably embarrassing. Their practitioners (Dennis Miller, Victoria Jackson, etc) are notable only for being lame has-beens. Consequently, they spend the majority of their time on the subject bashing comedians they regard as liberals,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4736"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4742,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4736\/revisions\/4742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}