Independents, Why Do You Watch Fox News When It Is Not A Trustworthy News Source?

Independents, Why You Watch Fox News When It Is Not A Trustworthy News Source?

One thing I require of any news and opinion source is that it tries to provide accurate information, and in an effort to assure myself that the information I am getting is accurate, I try to read and or view several different sources daily and use other resources for fact checking as necessary. One “news source” I rarely use is Fox. I have found Fox, both its news and opinion features, to often be inaccurate, incomplete, or downright fictitious, and I cannot understand why it attracts anyone.

I know that conservatives feel the other mainstream media outlets (NBC, CBS, ABC etc.) have a liberal bias—although they should be aware that liberals feel the bias is conservative. What I am criticizing in Fox is not bias, but error. I saw a modest example yesterday, in the Fox News story, “House Panel Paves Way for 'Nuclear Option' in Health Care Reform Bill”

In part the story reads, “A key House committee on Thursday quietly altered its health care legislation in a way that could allow the Senate to mow over Republican opposition to Democratic reforms by exploiting a budgetary loophole.

The Ways and Means Committee adjusted its health care overhaul package so that the Senate, down the road, could avoid a filibuster and pass health care reform with a smaller number of votes than normally required.”

Calling the “reconciliation process,” which is the standard procedure for reconciling budgetary legislation between House and Senate bills, a “budgetary loophole,” and saying the procedure “could allow the Senate to mow over Republican opposition” are examples of spin. The language is loaded but not totally inaccurate.

The notion that the “reconciliation process” allows a bill to pass, “with a smaller number of votes than normally required,” is a substantive factual error. Fifty-one votes are that are needed to pass any piece of legislation in the Senate. That is the number of votes required under the reconciliation process, and that is the number of votes normally required.

Sixty votes are required to cut off debate (end a filibuster), and because some Republican Senators have routinely been filibustering all legislation (during the 110^th congress, 2007-2009, Senate Republicans filed 142 cloture motions compared to 52 filed by the Democrats during the 109^th congress) that has become the goal before legislation is presented for a vote. It is possible, however, have 60 votes to close debate (for cloture) and then pass a bill with 51 votes.

This Fox article is also incorrect in calling the reconciliation process the “nuclear option.” The “nuclear option” is a parliamentary for ending a filibuster with a simple majority vote. It has never been used and  was last threatened by the Republicans in 2005 to cut off Democratic filibusters of Bush’s judicial appointments.

Calling the “reconciliation process” the “nuclear option” is the second substantive mistake in one small new article, and Fox News opinion features makes this story seem clean. I like the spin from both Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann; I consider them comfort food for my liberal mind. But if either of these two commentators made the kind of errors found in this article without almost immediate correction (Rachel corrects any error she later discovers) I would stop watching immediately. (And yes I do watch for factual errors in these programs.)

Everyone is entitled to their opinion; they are not entitled to their own facts. Why are you watching Fox?