So two weeks ago I did an article on Journalism as a dying art where I claimed Journalists didn’t need to be objective. Just last week I did an article about Dana Perino fact checking Eric Bolling.
Now it isn’t news that Fox news isn’t credible, ever, but they should be! As of June 30th this year Politifact rated 78 percent of statements Fox news has made as mostly false, false, or pants on fire (in case you watch Fox that's their term for "unbelievably false"). Sean Hannity himself has claimed on his own Twitter that he is not objective. Though true objectivity is impossible, Hannity and his network regularly twist facts, if not outright ignore them.
"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" even did an entire segment on how Republican politicians are treating feelings the same as facts. Well, Mr. Gingrich, in the spirit of feelings over facts, I feel like I should put on a 19th century dress, call myself Victoria, and go be the Queen of fucking England. Elizabeth wouldn't mind, right?
2016 has been a complete and utter mess of an election year, and it's not even September yet. We’ve had Ted Cruz, who may be the Zodiac Killer, Hillary Clinton (again), and a racist walking Cheeto. Yet Fox News can’t be bothered with something as fundamental as objectivity? Seventy-eight percent false isn’t just alarming. That’s a Westboro Baptist Church sermon. An honesty factor of 22 percent is as high as an ADHD four year old who knocked over his mother's lamp for the fourth time (shut up, I’m not speaking from experience). And I probably don't even need to bring up the "people who watch Fox are less informed than those who watch no news at all." But I will, because I’m an Internet dweller and I live for it.
The point is that this is an election season! Fox News at the very, least, is an outlet for conservative viewers. They should at least be truthful to their followers, shouldn’t they? Yet as mentioned last week, Eric Bolling told viewers to ignore polls. Newt Gingrich in that episode of "Last Week Tonight" was willing to ignore FBI statistics in favor of his own rhetoric! In fact why are you still reading this, John Oliver is funnier than me. Go watch something that is basically this and have a good laugh.
At the very least, news stations should promote objectivity, and facts in an Election season. If for no other reason than the presidential election being the definitive moment for political parties to rally together. If Fox news really and truly is the Conservative news outlet then it owes its allegiance to those conservative viewers. Yet over the course of this year that clearly hasn't been the case. To quote Jon Stewart, "Clearly, the 'c' next to your names don’t stand for constitutional or conservative."
