The Pros And Cons Of Fox News

Soon after the introduction of cable television, twenty-four-hour news networks began to develop to keep the consummate content consumer up to date in an ever-changing globalized world. CNN, formed in 1980, was the first of these networks. This rise in popularity continued into and through the 1990s, with MSNBC and Fox News being established in 1996. These two networks are considered the liberal and conservative news networks by the public, but the merits, intentions, and consequences of these stations are not equivalent. Whereas MSNBC provides news stories, follows trends and legislation with a slight slant that does not interfere with the heart and facts of the story, Fox news has no such loyalty to the truth and values an ideological narrative

As the result of reporting news to reaffirm an ideological narrative in American Society, Fox News Channel has radicalized conservative thought in America over the last twenty years and led to the mainstream empowerment of fringe political groups such as the alt-right.

While the first few years of Fox News was somewhat factually reliable the misinformation grew at a rapid pace at the beginning of the Bush administration. This misinformation formed as a part of defending the Bush Administration against critiques. Fox misinforms viewers through two ways, presenting false statements as true and leading the viewer on and edging them to a view that does not correlate with the facts. The latter is much more widely used and a perfect example of that came from their coverage of the unrest in Ferguson, MO where the DOJ released two documents. The first document exonerates the officer involved and debunks the hands up don’t shoot narrative. The second document states their findings in the investigation into the Ferguson Police Department. The police department was found to be guilty of

The alt right is a once fringe political group that rejects mainstream conservatism in America and believes in the preservation of the “white identity”. They do not have a definitive ideology but common beliefs held by those in the political group include white nationalism, that globalization is leading to cultural Marxism, nationalistic sympathies, and populism. This spread of the alt right political group consists primarily of millennials who were the first generation to grow up with Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone” and an IV drip of Rush Limbaugh’s frothing fear and hate mongering on talk radio. This movement has been greeted with trepidation and fear by all major media outlets apart from Fox News. Fox News did not come out and blatantly defend the alt right, but they did align the tactics of the alt right with the tactics of the democratic party, stating they were fighting fire with fire. They then site Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs fame, and offer his opinion on the air as if he has any qualifications to speak about the alt right philosophy, and they underplay the nationalistic and anti-Semitic tendencies of the alt right with a dismissive tone and a quick pivot. This rhetoric, if it can be called that, serves to reinforce the us vs them ideology of Fox News, the “Fair and