On Fox News, though, the issue came up less frequently. In the week before opening arguments, Fox News mentioned the terms half as often. On the day the arguments began, Fox mentioned “Trump” and “trial” in just over 80 chunks, about half as often as did CNN.
After Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts, attention switched to another trial with political implications. President Biden’s son Hunter faces federal charges in Delaware, with opening arguments beginning this week. The trial has gotten less attention than the Trump trial, for obvious reasons — but the difference in mentions on Fox is far more modest than you might assume.
On the first two days of Trump’s trial, Fox News mentioned “Trump” and “trial” in 155 chunks of airtime. In the first two days of Hunter Biden’s, it mentioned “Hunter” and “trial” in 105 chunks.
The extent to which Fox News’s editorial decisions diverge from its competitors is well-established. From burying the initial story that led to Trump’s Manhattan indictment to ignoring its own mistakes to focusing on boosting Trump and targeting Biden, the network’s efforts to support the former president and his party are clear.
We should not be surprised, then, when we see that people who watch Fox News or consume conservative media that takes a similar approach to coverage have diverging assessments of the country — and of reality.
Polling from Ipsos conducted last month and released this week measured where Americans got their news and how they viewed political issues. Those who cited Fox and other conservative outlets as their main news sources — about 10 percent of respondents — offered the widest margins of support for Donald Trump. Biden’s widest margins were among those who watch CNN and MSNBC (6 percent of the total) followed by the 8 percent who pointed to public radio/television and newspapers.
Some of this is self-selection: Many Fox News viewers watch Fox News because of the beliefs they hold, rather than their beliefs following from watching Fox News. But the two intermingle, with Fox (at times explicitly) reinforcing the existing biases of their audience.
There certainly isn’t much indication that the network’s coverage leads to people having a more accurate understanding of political issues. Ipsos asked respondents to evaluate the truth of several untrue claims, centered on immigration and the 2020 election. Those who cited Fox News and the conservative media as their main source of news were between four and nine times more likely than CNN/MSNBC viewers to believe the false claims.
There’s a caveat to apply here, too. Choose different questions — like, say, if Trump himself was shown to have directly worked with Russian actors before the 2016 election — and you might see the divide reverse. But the questions posed by Ipsos are obviously salient to the 2024 election and the responses provide insight into how voters view the upcoming choice of president.
For example, a question about the most important issues facing the country yielded widely varying responses, depending on the information source. Fox News/conservative media consumers were way more likely than anyone else to say that immigration was the top issue. They were also more likely to believe false claims about immigration under Biden.
Then there’s the issue of confidence in the election. Those who believe the false claims that the 2020 election was stolen are also most likely to think that 2024’s election will be suspect.
The chicken is the egg: Fox News is right-wing because its audience is right-wing and its audience is right-wing because the network is right-wing. The result is a diverging view of reality, one that at times tips into surreality.
