Talk:Fox News controversies

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Fox News, President Obama and Osama bin Laden

A new section should be added to numerous times Fox News had said "President Obama is dead", "Obama bin Laden is dead" and "Obama is dead", should it be created?

Why aren't O'Reilly and Hannity under "Criticism of pundits"?

They're two of the three most visible and controversial hosts on the network. I'm sure we could get a lot in. On a similar note, hypothetically, if we have an MSNBC controversies page in the future, it would be well to include it's commentators Olbermann, Maddow, Matthews, and Shultz. There's years worth of criticisms of these people. J390 (talk) 08:10, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

First of all MSNBC is journalism and their pundits have no where near the amount of evidence piled up against them to show the obvious bias like Fox news pundits. Show me one study that actually deals with bias in msnbc instead of just giving your armchair analysis. Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.38.230.227 (talk) 19:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Should all sources that use fox news be automatically purged from Wikipedia?

The science is alread in on this subject, if Wikipedia's image is to be improved as a reliable source of information, then Fox news should not be allowed to be used for anything, unless its to prove what fox has said. But to use fox news as a source when talking about serious issues like the financial crisis does all Wikipedia users a disservice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.38.230.227 (talk) 19:42, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

This would be more properly discussed on something like the WP:RS discussion page or a notice board regarding RS. Kevin Baas^talk 16:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

University of Maryland study

I don't want to quibble about each word used in the description, but it needs to be somewhat accurately reflect what the survey was about. The survey clearly states that it is about misinformation and it also explains what it considers "false" and "correct" information in this context. So no matter how exactly you want to phrase that, you cannot simply state it was a survey of beliefs and fox viewers turned out to have the following believes, such a description would be an utter misrepresentation of the survey and a violation of WP policy.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:31, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What policy is being violated? How is it being misrepresented? Also this is a violation of WP:PRIMARY Arzel (talk) 21:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

If you describe the content of a source in a false or misleading manner, that's a policy violation. As I said above the study is cleary about misinformation (starting from its very title to lotsa detailed formulations explaning and talking of misinformation) and turning that into mere "opinion survey", as the old description did, is a gross misrepresentation. Note that at this point this has nothing to do with the study's claims being (objectively) true or not or whether it should be critiqued or not. It is just a question of describing its claims accurately.

As far as WP:Primary is concerned, I don't really see a violation here, in particular in this area, where people cite constantly pundits, newspapers and even blogs arguing against academic university publication on the base of WP:Primary strikes me rather odd and the study is not exactly putting forward a novel idea either. Also if you read WP:PRIMARY carefully, you'll see there is usually no issue with citing reliably published (primary) material, as long as you stay away from personal interpretations, which btw was exactly the problem of the old formulation (by ommission) and the reason I complained. Lastly you might not even the consider paper itself as the primary source but rather its raw data/questionaire, whereas the interpretation of that data by the scientist is not really that different from the interpretation of the data by any (other) secondary source.

Lastly if you seriously want to object against the use of the study at all on the base of WP:PRIMARY, then I'm partially the false person to address. I included the study neither here nor in the FOX News article, I merely corrected its misleading description.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:57, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Soxwon is probably right, that is better to explicitly put the information in qualifiers (i.e. explicity writing something like "the study claims, that ..."). However the edit was still somewhat problematic, as it what again not fully reporting what the study actually says. I tried to fix that, but I but i think my formulation is still a bit awkward, so feel free to improve it. But please note, that a proper description needs to cover the following points to describe the study accurately:

• It needs to be clear that the study defines what misinformation is (but that definition is not universally agreed and might be subject to debate)
• It needs to be clear that they explicitly classify various voters' beliefs as false or true based on their definition misinformation

Just stating the various beliefs without the study's classification of them is omitting the central point of the study being about misinformation (="false" beliefs).--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:39, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that the current wording should work OK. It may be better to use a secondary source to characterize the study, but I don't feel strongly about it. I do think that some of David Zurawik's analysis of the study should be added in another sentence, namely, who defines "misinformed" (already covered in the current text), that certain government agencies are defined as holding the "true" views, and that the study didn't differentiate between the influences of actual news coverage vs. political ads seen on the FNC. Drrll (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Misinformation is a completely unambigious term. believing the answer is not a when the answer is a. it can be defined quantitatively in terms of information theory. notice however that there is a common misperception about information (ironically!), namely it is common to percieve it as something intrinsic, where in fact it is a peroperty of a relationship between things. the information ('signal') "in itself" is not a sufficient definition to evaluate it quantitatively. for instance, one may need to specify a source. having specified a source you can then determine the divergence between the model (recieved message) and the source, e.g. as a kullback-liebler-divergence. in the case of binary values this becomes utterly trivial. e.g. "what number am i thinking of?" "5?". "no." now say i am thinking of the number 7. someone else tells you that i am thinking of the number 3. that is misinformation. (notice they must include a source, "me" in order to evaluate whether it is misinformation or not). this is the universally agreed upon definition and it is not subject to debate. Kevin Baas^talk 19:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The second part: "it needs to be clear that they explicitely...." no it doesn't. that's implied neccessarily. that follows neccessarily from there being information to be informed or misinformed (or not informed) about. to state otherwise would simply be absurd. Kevin Baas^talk 19:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Kmhkmh is correct. describing the content of a source in a false or misleading manner is a clear violation of policy, nto to mention downright unethical. there is nothing ambigiuous or debatable about this issue. it is for that reason that i am replacing whatever the hell that was with a faithfull summary of the content of the report. Kevin Baas^talk 19:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

From the report:

A study of misinformation raises the somewhat delicate question of what is true. When dealing with topics that have been highly politicized, it is common to default to the position that all perceptions are relative and treatment of any position as more or less true is itself inherently political. We believe that such a position is at odds with what is necessary for well-functioning democracy. It is indeed very important for a healthy democratic process to be open to a wide range of positions. At the same time, it is essential that there be means and institutions for achieving consensus about key factors that ultimately affect public policy decisions. On a regular basis government economists come to conclusions about the state of the economy. Such conclusions influence key decisions in the private sphere, as well as government decisions. Such government economists should be, and generally are, open to input from experts outside of government in the course of coming to conclusions. In the course of this study, to identify “misinformation” among voters, we used as reference points the conclusions of key government agencies that are run by professional experts and have a strong reputation for being immune to partisan influences. These include the Congressional Budget Office, the Department of Commerce, and the National Academy of Sciences. We also noted efforts to survey elite opinion, such as the regular survey of economists conducted by the Wall Street Journal; however, we only used this as supporting evidence for what constitutes expert opinion. In most cases we inquired about respondents’ views of expert opinion, as well as the respondents’ own views. While one may argue that a respondent who had a belief that is at odds with expert opinion is misinformed, in designing this study we took the position that some respondents may have had correct information about prevailing expert opinion but nonetheless came to a contrary conclusion, and thus should not be regarded as ‘misinformed.’ It should also be noted that queries about expert opinion were not predicated on the idea that there is unanimity on issues. On some issues, such as climate change, there is a vocal dissenting minority among experts. Thus questions were framed in terms of whether, among experts, more had one or another view, or views were evenly divided.

Kevin Baas^talk 20:09, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

And let me be clear 'cause it seems that you miss this crucial point: they did not ask people what their opinion was, they asked them what they though expert opinion was, whether it was divided or unanimous. not whether the experts were right or wrong, or certain opinions were right or wrong, as you seem to think. while the latter may be subjective, the former is not. Kevin Baas^talk 20:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The inaccurate wording i have removed blatently misleads on these very important points stated clearly and in no uncertain terms in the very introduction of the report. this is a clear violation of policy, and ethics. Kevin Baas^talk 20:17, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as the study goes, this video pretty much casts doubt on it in the best way possible (with facts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8KHOgyYyHQ PokeHomsar (talk) 21:57, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

sorry, i watched a few minutes of that video. in short, it's a crock of sh**. it's more egregiously fallacious and opinionated than the people here who want to misrepresent it and add their own synthesis and analysis that's directly contrary to the information contained in the report. and it is the worst example of blatent bias i've seen in nearly a decade. it is just downright disturbing, and i wish you hadn't shown me it. Kevin Baas^talk 22:08, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

You clearly didn't watch a minute of it. He does analysis to contradict the conclusions of the study by casting doubt on the answers to the questions. The answers to the questions were completely false. There's a reason the MSNBC viewers did better than the rest on most of the questions. PokeHomsar (talk) 00:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it seemed like he set out to find certain answers and cherry-picked the facts that best supported these answers, and although his analysis was vaguely interesting, I would definitely question his methods. Soxwon (talk) 01:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, there is a fair bit wrong with that video, certainly his appreciation of Crowding out (economics) is flawed. un☯mi 02:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well the video does raise some valuably questions in terms of critically questioning the study and provided some interesting background research, but it has some flaw on its own by cherrypicking the background material and somewhat ignoring some context issues and reading things into the study, which it strictly speaking doesn't claim (but only people using it do).

In some way it might just show that the study should have not used some of the economic questions in a murky area where there are no clear answer from a strict scientific point of view to begin with but only people believing to have them. Some ecomnomic arguments occasionally bear resemblance to religion rather than science.

As far as the WP article is concerned the video cannot be used as a source anyway. And the original point of thread was, that the claims of the study were not accurately/adequately described in the WP article. Which is a completely different issue from the question whether those claims are actually true or not. However that problem with the inaccurate description has been fixed already.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S.: Various recent edits introduced the misrepresentation of the study again. So let me reiterate:

If you reference/cite the study at all, you need to do so in an accurate manner. The description of those views of Fox viewers as misinformed and false is a central claim of the study. It does not matter whether you agree with the study's claims or not and it doesn't matter whether they are truly correct or not. In any case you need to describe the study's claims accurately, anything else is a policy violation.

If some editor here still has problems to wrap his head around this concept, then think of it as a quote. If you quote somebody, then you have to quote his originally statement verbatim, no matter whether it is correct or total nonense. And if you think the content of the is nonsense, you can add some sourced criticism of it afterwards, but you cannot modify or correct the quote to remove the (perceived) nonsense.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Kmhkmh, very clearly stated. I share your frustration that it seems some people are making a straw man of the report, and personally i find making a straw man of anything morally reprehensible. anycase you may have noticed my wording. while you changes are definitely a step in the right direction, i was striving for wording that more closely approaches a "quote", as you say; one that more precisely matches the technical precision of the wording used in the report. e.g. w/phrases like "statistical significance" and "correlation", and clarifying that the study was not about belief, but about knowledge of what the distribution of expert opinion was (while remaining agnostic about the opinions themselves). why be vauge when you can just as easily be a little bit more precise, thus being simultaneously more accurate _and_ more informative? anycase that's just a little overview of the thinking behind my wording, FWIW. Kevin Baas^talk 14:26, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not necesssarily a big defender of the current wording, but to me that's something like minimal version I might accept to avoid edit warring. Going below that as in the version before is misrepresentation of the study and policy violation or in a more common tongue simply lying (by ommission) about its content. If you want a more extensive description, I have no objections. But I would prefer if you and the other involved editors (azrael, soxwon, PokeHomsar) were to agree on text proposal on the discussion page first, rather than edit warring over it in the article. Another compromise beyond coming up with our own accurate description of the survey's claims and content, is to agree an various literal quotes giving an accurate description in their entirety. It seems a bit artificial/overblown to me, but of nothing else works that might be an option.--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I fixed a little something you missed that i'm sure noboby will have any problem with: [1]. Kevin Baas^talk 16:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I also fixed an attribution error and a lie by ommission: [2]. I don't expect these to be controversial, either. Kevin Baas^talk 16:11, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I noticed the line under, that says "...agencies are defined as holding the "true" positions on issues ...". this is patently false. the report clearly states that agencies are not in anyway presumed (or "defined"!) to hold "true" or "correct" positions on the issues. this is clearly stated in the intro in the text i have quoted above. as this is a matter of verifiable fact (a matter of record, in fact), it should be made clear to the reader. Kevin Baas^talk 17:55, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I quote directly from the study: "While one may argue that a respondent who had a belief that is at odds with expert opinion is misinformed, in designing this study we took the position that some respondents may have had correct information about prevailing expert opinion but nonetheless came to a contrary conclusion, and thus should not be regarded as 'misinformed.'" Kevin Baas^talk 18:28, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Someone change the Glenn Beck area

It makes him sound negative and almost evil. Never once has he mentioned socialism on his program or critized President Obama's policy. He is not controversial and this should be noted in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.254.126.57 (talk) 01:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

i don't know what you're refering to here, but if you've ever listened to him, well, HE makes himself sound that way. so maybe you're just confusing quotes and verifiable stuff with content/analysis? i don't know. just something to be wary of. we can't put our own opinion in even to "balance it out". we can only put in notable an due weight facts. Kevin Baas^talk 14:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

You should know better. Please, try to WP:AGF and avoid WP:BITE in the future. You might also try paying some attention to timestamps, as articles can change in a week. †TE†Talk 15:21, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

i don't see how that was a violation of either. i did not assume any bad faith on the part of any editor or use ascerbic language with respect to any editor. i reserve the right to clearly and frankly state relevant facts, anecdotes, and opinions. as far as timestamps go, articles CAN change in a week, but they usually don't. Kevin Baas^talk 15:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Union Poll

On wed Feb 23 fox showed a poll that stated that Americans were opposed to unions. But they flipped the results because teh pool actually said that Americans favored unions.

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/02/fox-reverses-poll-results-to-portray-public-as-anti-union/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.187.83.247 (talk) 15:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)