The website Politifact.com, which is owned and operated by the Tampa Bay Times, published their review of accuracy in reporting from the 24-hour news outlets Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.
The report was unfavorable towards Fox News which found them to be incorrect in reports they make nearly 60% of the time. Put another way, the report would suggest that 3 in 5 news stories are partially or entire false. The fact checking was done on a sample news coverage during the month of September. By comparison, CNN was found to be 80% accurate which means 4 in 5 stories are partially or entire truthful.
It was a curious finding given that CNN has demonstrably toted the Obama administration’s talking points. Often times, CNN omits inconvenient truths regarding the economy to assemble a narrative of facts which create an inaccurate conclusion.
The network’s “high” accuracy rating hasn’t translated into new viewers. While CNN moved up from third place to second place ahead of MSNBC, that wasn’t because their overall ratings improved in 2014. CNN’s ratings declined by 5%.
However, MSNBC saw its ratings share collapse by 20% which saw their viewership sink below CNN’s. At the same time that Politifact was lambasting Fox News over their supposed penchant for reporting false facts, the organization cautioned against any network making business decisions to change their programming content based on their report. This is because the report looked at only a sample of select news stories.
That alone seems to discredit the value of Politifacts findings. If Fox News is proverbially “lying through their teeth”, they most certainly have a need to revamp their programming.