In new polling made available by Variety, Fox News discovered roughly one in five of its viewers trust the network less in connection to revealed messages showing prominent personalities distancing themselves from the false claims of widespread election fraud that circulated so expansively after the last presidential race, including on Fox’s broadcasts.
Among the viewers of Fox News aged 18 and above who were asked about their latest take on Fox’s reporting, 21 percent said they trust the network less. The question asked of respondents read: “How has your trust in the information provided by Fox News changed following Murdoch’s testimony and private texts from Fox News hosts that voter fraud claims were false?” In other categories, those indicating they continue to trust the network comprised 45 percent of the total, and those indicating they distrusted it — but had already — were a little over one-tenth. Those respondents would probably include people who watch it with family or in work contexts.
At Fox, hosts, board members (like ex-Congressman Paul Ryan), and company leadership largely criticized the lies about the election in texts and emails. But publicly? Fox has largely stuck by Trump’s vision. Fox is facing defamation litigation from interests including Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, both of which are companies involved in election technology, and the Dominion case may soon be heading to trial.
A Fox News spokesperson said:
‘There has been no impact to advertising, with no advertisers dropping or pausing.’
“In addition, 13% of Fox News viewers no longer believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen after reading” key communications at issue, Variety reported — suggesting that the information ecosystem really is a critical part of the situation for some of these people. Revelations about what Fox personnel were really thinking have come in the form of drops from Dominion that it accumulated during discovery, which is the pretrial period in which the involved parties can gather relevant evidence.
The new survey was conducted with 1,524 interviewees online from March 10 through March 12.
Gloria Christie is a political journalist for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Find her here on Facebook. Or at Three White Lions, her book written in her own unique style with a twist of humor on Amazon Kindle Vella and the Gloria Christie Three White Lions podcast on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, etc. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in progress).
