{"id":9209,"date":"2013-03-01T04:09:46","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T12:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9209"},"modified":"2013-03-01T17:42:39","modified_gmt":"2013-03-02T01:42:39","slug":"sequestering-the-truth-fox-news-misreports-their-own-polling-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9209","title":{"rendered":"Sequestering The Truth: Fox News Misreports Their Own Polling Results"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p style=\"float:right;text-align:center;color:#4646DC;width:110px;\">Unhappy with the data, Fox makes up their own.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s bad enough that Fox News is compulsively disposed to lying about President Obama and anyone else who challenges their hyper-conservative dogma, but when they resort to lying about the product of their own reporting it&#8217;s an indication of something gone terribly askew. This is the sort of brazen deceit that Fox usually reserves for their notorious <a href=\"http:\/\/amzn.to\/UPoI6a\" target=\"_blank\">Fib Factory, Fox Nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Fox News just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/interactive\/2013\/02\/28\/fox-news-poll-president-obama-transparency-and-sequester\/\" target=\"_blank\">published the results<\/a> of their polling wherein they asked respondents whether they would prefer a budget deal that reduced the deficit with spending cuts or with tax increases. The question itself was grossly biased in that it implies that there are proposals to avert sequestration by raising taxes. However, neither party is proposing any tax increases in the current negotiations, only the closing of loopholes to which both sides had previously agreed. Setting that aside, Fox posted its account of the poll results with a headline reading <em>&#8220;Voters Say Cuts Are &#8216;Only Way&#8217; to Control Deficit.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/FoxNews\/foxnews-poll-deficit.jpg\" alt=\"Fox News Poll\" \/><\/center><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s an interesting (i.e. thoroughly dishonest) interpretation of the poll&#8217;s actual results which found that respondents preferred deficit reduction by focusing&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Only on cutting government spending: 33%<\/li>\n<li>Mostly on cutting spending, and a small number of tax increases: 19%<\/li>\n<li><strong>On an equal mix of spending cuts and tax increases: 36%<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Only on adding further tax increases 7%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It doesn&#8217;t take a master statistician to recognize that the choice of most respondents was the <em>&#8220;equal mix.&#8221;<\/em> How Fox concluded that they preferred cutting spending as the <em>&#8220;only way&#8221;<\/em> is mysterious and unexplained. Furthermore, if you total all the choices that included at least some tax increases there is a clear majority (67%) in favor of adding revenue rather than spending cuts alone. In other words, it&#8217;s the exact opposite of what Fox is reporting. If Fox doesn&#8217;t like what their own poll says, maybe they shouldn&#8217;t publish the results. Apparently, flagrantly lying in order to misrepresent the truth is more their style.<\/p>\n<p>Some additional results from the survey include: Obama&#8217;s favorability is at 51%. His job approval is at 46%, compared to congress which is at 16%, with a jaw-dropping 77% disapproving. Digging deeper into those numbers reveals that the disapproval of congress cuts across party lines with Democrats registering a negative 72%. Republicans like congress even less with 79% disapproving. And at 82%, Independents really hate them.<\/p>\n<p>Fox also measured the favorability of several other notable figures, all of whom scored lower than the President. Obama: 51%; Pope Benedict: 45%; John Kerry: 43%; Marco Rubio: 31%; John Boehner: 23%; And Chuck Hagel: 17%. Note that all of the Republicans in Fox&#8217;s poll sit at the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, for some reason Fox included a curious question not asked by many other pollsters:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Former President George W. Bush stopped golfing after the start of the Iraq war. Do you think President Barack Obama should stop golfing until the unemployment rate improves and the economy is doing better?&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>First of all, it&#8217;s somewhat grotesque to juxtapose a lackluster economy with the deadly consequences of war. That said, respondents apparently don&#8217;t care much whether Obama goes golfing or not. Forty-three percent answered that he should stow his clubs, but 45% say he should go ahead and play. And for the record, Bush did not stop golfing after the Iraq war began in March of 2003, so the question is misleading from the outset. But more to the point, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2008\/may\/15\/georgebush.usa\" target=\"_blank\">reports documented<\/a> that Bush continued to hit the links well into October. And even after he did quit golfing, he engaged in other leisurely pastimes like biking and his personal passion for clearing brush.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unhappy with the data, Fox makes up their own. It&#8217;s bad enough that Fox News is compulsively disposed to lying about President Obama and anyone else who challenges their hyper-conservative dogma, but when they resort to lying about the product of their own reporting it&#8217;s an indication of something gone terribly askew. This is the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,684],"tags":[183,1141,33],"class_list":["post-9209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-media-bias","tag-barack-obama","tag-economy","tag-fox-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-2ox","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7113,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7113","url_meta":{"origin":9209,"position":0},"title":"Obama Surging Ahead Of Romney In Fox News Poll That Fox News Ignores","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/17\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"For additional evidence that Fox News is the PR agency for the Republican Party, note the feverishly excited treatment that Fox News gives to polling when the results favor Mitt Romney: In the past two months Fox Nation has posted at least seven articles on election polling and every single\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19705,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=19705","url_meta":{"origin":9209,"position":1},"title":"So F**king What? Fox News Freaks Out Over American Muslims Support For Obama","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/12\/2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A new Gallup poll surveyed the job approval rating for President Obama broken down by various religious groups. It's a mildly interesting batch of data candy for polling nerds to suck on when they're bored. The overall results average out to about the same level of approval (43%) registered in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fox Nation Poll","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-poll-muslims.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-poll-muslims.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/foxnation-poll-muslims.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10321,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=10321","url_meta":{"origin":9209,"position":2},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: Clinton Polling Ahead Of Every Republican Is &#8220;Underwhelming&#8221;","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/7\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"While it is still more than three years before the next presidential election, Fox News is desperately spinning polling results in order to diminish the broad popularity of Hillary Clinton. In an article on Fox Nation (the notoriously dishonest Fox News community site), a poll conducted (pdf) by Monmouth University\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7797,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=7797","url_meta":{"origin":9209,"position":3},"title":"Fox News Continues To Ignore Polls Favorable To Obama","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/17\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A new poll by the Fox News house pollsters, Rasmussen, shows that President Obama has gained on Mitt Romney since the announcement of Paul Ryan as Romney's vice-presidential running mate. That's a striking achievement for Obama considering the notorious right-wing bias of Rasmussen. But first, a little background... Last week\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5662,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=5662","url_meta":{"origin":9209,"position":4},"title":"Fox Nation vs. Reality: Ugly For Obama In Ohio","author":"Mark NC","date":"10\/26\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing the \"Fox Nation vs. Reality\" series, this episode has the Fox Nationalists declaring that things are \"Ugly For Obama In Ohio.\" And to support their declaration, Fox Nation referenced a poll by Quinnipiac University that shows Obama out-polling every leading Republican challenger. Obama beats: Cain: 47 - 39 Romney:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4729,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4729","url_meta":{"origin":9209,"position":5},"title":"Fox Nation: Obama Has A Big Problem With White Women","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/23\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Conservatives have lately been escalating their umbrage at being called racist. I keep telling them that the best way to get people to stop calling you racist is to stop being racists. But do they listen? Today on Fox Nation there is a featured story with the headline: \"Obama Has\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\/9209","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=9209"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9217,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9209\/revisions\/9217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}