Commentary

This Just In From The Mars News Channel...


A variety of polling, sophisticated market research techniques, modeling and expert political forecasting in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign season points to Joe Biden winning the presidential election, at least by a narrow margin, and possibly more. Some of the research also suggests the biggest loser of the election won’t be the incumbent President, but the American public. But not for the reasons you think.

A revealing insight from Ipsos’ tracking suggests a significant percentage of Americans won’t accept the outcome of the election -- no matter what the outcome -- and that it’s not because of simple political “partisanship,” but because they actually come from another planet that has an alternate view of reality.

That planet is called Fox News Channel, but according to Ipsos’ top political expert Chris Jackson, it might as well be called Mars.

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“This is really important to understand,” Jackson said during the last in a series of Ipsos political briefings leading up to this year’s election, noting “we’re not even necessarily talking about the same reality. In a lot of ways, some of us are talking about Mars and others are talking about Venus.”

Citing studies Ipsos conducted with Reuters and Axios, Jackson noted that regardless of their political affiliation, Americans who get their news from Fox have a different sense of reality.

The studies, which asked voters of all parties whether they agreed or disagreed with two facts -- the official U.S. COVID-19 death toll and whether they approve of the President’s handling of it -- found alternate views of those realities even within the same party, depending on whether they depended on Fox as their source for news.

“We see a huge difference between Fox News Republicans and non-Fox News Republicans,” Jackson said while presenting the data shown in the chart above. He also noted the same thing was true among Independent voters, depending on whether they got their news from Fox or not.

“There’s a strong divergence about what we understand to be ground truths and ground facts,” Jackson bemoaned, adding that this disparity could create problems next week based on “how various media outlets” report on the election’s results, especially if it is a close election.

“How partisans interpret that reporting is really going to impact how we all handle that post-election period,” Jackson forewarned.

While Jackson didn’t explicitly editorialize on the culpability of any media outlets, this is an opinion-based political blog, so I think it’s fair for me to say his findings illustrate just how dangerous Fox News Channel has been to American democracy. Istead of unifying us around common ground, it has focused on spreading alternate views of truth that have contributed to what Jackson described as the “most chaotic” political season ever. And based on his caution, it likely will be the most chaotic post-election period, too.

I understand that, at some level, offering a different political point of view is healthy for democracy, but offering different facts is not. That’s normally the role of hostile foreign agents -- especially Russians -- who use disinformation as part of their hybrid warfare to destabilize Western democracies. It shouldn’t be the role of a homegrown American media enterprise.

Worst of all, it has proven to be a successful business strategy, driving Fox News’ ratings and revenues. According to a Pew Research Center analysis, Fox News’ ad revenues actually surged 41% during the pandemic. And I’m guessing that wasn’t all from the My Pillow Guy. I’m guessing a lot of it came from mainstream consumer brand marketers who actually care about the negative impact Fox News’ disinformation -- er, I mean “alternate facts” --  are having on American democracy.

So I just have to ask -- at a time when you all seem so consumed by “brand safety” -- you’re not applying the same standards to America’s safety?

7 comments about "This Just In From The Mars News Channel...".
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  1. Long Ellis from Tetra TV, October 30, 2020 at 12:09 p.m.

    What are the numbers for Democrats watching Fox? Would be interesting to see if they are swayed at all. 

  2. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, October 30, 2020 at 12:52 p.m.

    Long, some old studies from Pew suggest that very few average minute FNC viewers are Democrats---I would guess about 10-15%, maybe less. As for being convinced---possibly--- as these Democrats are very likely extremely conservative Democrats.

  3. Long Ellis from Tetra TV replied, October 30, 2020 at 12:57 p.m.

    Or Republicans watching CNN/MSNBC. How are they swayed? 

  4. Long Ellis from Tetra TV replied, October 30, 2020 at 1:03 p.m.

    Ed - Are you saying that the numbers would not be statistically significant? 

  5. Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, October 30, 2020 at 1:46 p.m.

    After all, Joe, isn't Mars known as "The Red Planet"?I think that Pluto would be a better example.

  6. Daniel Ambrose from ambro.com, corp., October 30, 2020 at 1:56 p.m.

    Great question Joe.

    Many big companies have defied the dis-information to make committments to the environment, which is deeply related to global health.  Will those same big spenders make a committment to the "media environment" and refuse to subsidize Murdoch and Fox with their advertising?  Fopx is actively hurting their own viewers health with the disemination of opinion and so-called alternative facts. Covid is just one aspect of that. Denial of climate science is another. Anti-healthcare improvement is another.

  7. John Grono from GAP Research, October 30, 2020 at 7:05 p.m.

    Joe, am interesting post.

    When you were commenting about Fox News, you say "offering a different political point of view is healthy for democracy, but offering different facts is not.".   I totally agree.   You then also say "That’s normally the role of hostile foreign agents -- especially Russians --".

    That is IMHO that is a very US-centric POV.   Consider us poor ol' Aussies downunder.   Fox News is shown here and we have a domestic version on subscription TV and now tip-toeing onto broadcast TV. 

    So given the influence of Fox News here in Australia should we Aussies, using logic by extension, see the US as a hostile foreign agent?     (Not that we do.)

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