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Now, when you juxtapose the clips of Fox News repeatedly (across their news anchors and pundits) stating these exaggerated figures for the president's recent trip to Asia against the actual figures, it really illustrates something but does everyone who watches Fox get it?
Let me put this to you differently. Let's say you were blind or had really bad eyesight. Let's say you had a trusted friend who you counted on to help you read contracts and interpret the world for you. Everything is just chugging along nicely when one day, you have someone else read a contract to you that your friend previously read and discover that your friend was misleading you. Would you continue to trust that friend? I mean, after all, it could be just this one contract. But if you could no longer trust that friend, how useful would he be to you moving forward?
So Fox viewers... when is enough, enough? When does the trust get violated enough times to cause you to doubt what you're hearing and step away from being told what you want to hear to being told what's really going on? This is emphatically NOT an argument for watching CNN or MSNBC. I'm mainly making the point that one must first decide that they WANT to be told what's happening, not be told what makes them feel better/angry/justified. Second, one needs to begin searching for those sources which earn their trust. Trust does NOT mean agreement.
For me, this boils down to these few things:
1) Do they correct themselves and admit when they are wrong?
2) Do they post/link to opposing viewpoints?
3) Do they explain their reasoning?
4) Do they link to their source(s) and encourage their readers to form their own judgments? These sources should be primary sources not secondary sources. Meaning they should be the actual artifact being opined about or the actual person involved or someone who was present.
5) Do they avoid reporting on things that benefit them financially and, at minimum, present potential financial benefits/conflicts of interest in full disclosure when they do?
Ask yourself if your news source does these things consistently. Fox News doesn't. Neither does CNN or MSNBC. 24 hour cable news is not benefitting this country.
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