User:Andrevan/FoxNewsRFCdraft

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Fox News RFC appeared on RSN

RFC: Fox News (news): politics & science

{`{rfc|pol|sci}`} Should Fox News (the news website, not the TV shows) be considered reliable or unreliable for politics and science?

1. Upgrade to Generally Reliable for factual reporting
2. Status quo to maintain present situation; No Consensus, Unclear, or Additional Considerations Apply
3. Downgrade to Generally Unreliable or Questionable for factual reporting
4. Deprecate entirely to Generally Prohibited

Andrevan@ 18:10, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Survey

• Downgrade (proposer), due to several recent instances of failed fact checking, as well as doubting the fact checkers, pushing COVID misinformation, promoting other conspiracy theories, and blurring of fact and opinion in coverage marked as news coverage, news portion should be downgraded to questionable and generally unreliable. Like its cousin the New York Post (both are owned by News Corp), both are sensationalist and right-leaning at the expense of factual accuracy. It's beyond a bias and goes into the realm of "alternative facts." See discussion and sources for my reasoning in separate delineated sections below. Andrevan@ 18:01, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

Status quo from WP:RSP and past RFCs

The status quo on Fox News from WP:RSP is: There is no consensus on the reliability of Fox News's coverage of politics and science. Use Fox News with caution to verify contentious claims. Editors perceive Fox News to be biased or opinionated for politics; use in-text attribution for opinions. See also: Fox News (news excluding politics and science), Fox News (talk shows). The statement would change to say, There is a consensus that Fox News is generally unreliable or questionable for politics and science.

Past RFCs [please WP:BOLDly add any others I missed]: 257, 238, 303. Andrevan@ 17:50, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Evidence added by Andrevan

1. Clinton campaign paid to 'infiltrate' Trump Tower, White House servers to link Trump to Russia, Durham finds. - see fact check here Special Counsel Did NOT Say Clinton Paid Tech Boss To 'Infiltrate' Trump Tower And White House Servers "The indictment filed by Durham charges Sussman with lying, but not actual infiltration of private Trump servers and does not mention White House servers at all"
2. Fauci dismisses study on delta efficacy between Moderna, Pfizer as guide for booster shots "Dr. Anthony Fauci has dismissed a study that deemed the Moderna vaccine as more effective than the Pfizer one against the COVID-19 delta variant." Fact-checked by PolitiFact: Fauci didn’t doubt vaccine study; he cautioned against using it for choosing a booster FALSE
3. 2 articles Lockdowns only reduced COVID-19 death rate by .2%, study finds: 'Lockdowns should be rejected out of hand' CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo completely avoid Johns Hopkins study finding COVID lockdowns ineffective Fact check by Politifact: "The working paper is not a peer-reviewed scientific study, and its authors are not medical or public health researchers," Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told PolitiFact Published research contradicts findings Methodological issues
4. Coverage about the Steele Dossier and the John Durham/Sussman investigation ' Yet the standard for left-leaning media for years on the Russia-related material was it could hold up to scrutiny because it had not been specifically discredited, a logical fallacy known as an appeal to ignorance. Despite acquittal, Durham trial of Sussmann added to evidence Clinton campaign plotted to tie Trump to Russia The dossier has now been largely discredited. Lots of media-bashing and litigating the Durham case. According to mainstream sources, some parts of the Steele dossier were corroborated
5. Coverage on Hunter Biden laptop controversy: basically tabloid style media-bashing, not labelled as opinion but claims uncritically that there is a huge story which has been dismissed and debunked by mainstream sources, and said not to relate to Joe Biden at all. Essentially a right-wing talking point. See related Vanity Fair piece
6. Black Lives Matter says it stands with Hamas terrorists in Israeli conflict Fact check by PolitiFact - No, Black Lives Matter didn’t say it stands with ‘Hamas terrorists’' FALSE (response to WP:HEADLINE objection: Politifact: In the May 19 edition of the CNN newsletter Reliable Sources, media reporter Oliver Darcy wrote that "Fox stealth-edited the significant error out of its piece, and only attached a weak editor’s note to the article after I reached out for comment on why it hadn’t done so already." )
7. "Ever since the Biden administration attempted to redefine what a recession was" Politifact: "No, the White House didn’t change the definition of “recession”" (fact check is not of Fox but it's the same false statement)
8. The United Kingdom's government is increasingly reassured that the coronavirus pandemic was the result of a lab leak in Wuhan, China, according to a new report. While the theory that the coronavirus was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology was dismissed by world governments early into the pandemic, evidence continues to trickle out supporting the claim. Government officials in the U.K., U.S., and elsewhere have begun voicing support for further investigation into the lab leak possibility. Lab leak theory, articles claiming lab leak theory is likely. Science.org: Why many scientists say it’s unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a “lab leak” Fox: "The true origin of the virus that has killed millions around the globe remains unknown."New reporting from Fox News' "Special Report" showed there was an effort by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, then-National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, and other scientists to not mention the possibility of the virus originating in a lab. The consensus was reached on a call in early 2020 that the lab leak theory should be left out of an early paper on COVID-19 origins because it will add "fuel to the conspiracists." Two years later, there is no definitive proof that the virus started in nature or that it leaked from a lab. But the theory that the virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which studies coronaviruses, is no longer shunned as a conspiracy and is gaining more traction among scientific communities calling for further inquiry. FOX NEWS SPECIAL REPORT OUTLINES FRESH QUESTIONS ON WHAT FAUCI, GOVERNMENT KNEW ABOUT COVID ORIGIN Fox News talked to several scientists and investigators who have studied COVID-19 origins, and here are some reasons – science-based and circumstantial – why they believe the evidence points to the global pandemic originating from a Wuhan lab, possibly from a researcher accidentally getting infected during an experiment with coronaviruses and spreading it into the community. CNN: "The Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China, was most likely the epicenter for the coronavirus." The covid-19 lab leak hypothesis: did the media fall victim to a misinformation campaign? more lab leak articles that claim some kind of cover-up by Fauci et al
9. Calls Daniel Dale, CNN fact checker, a "liberal reporter","very obviously a rank partisan"
10. "PolitiFact appears to be shielding President Biden and Vice President Harris from criticism over their past rhetoric expressing distrust in the coronavirus vaccine during the Trump administration. "
11. more doubting the fact checkers: Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton pushed back against the fact-check, writing, "@Politifact is corruptly lying about Biden WH change to the definition of ‘recession.’ And now this lie, to protect Joe Biden, will be used to censor countless users on @Facebook and other social media platforms."
12. But the so-called "fact-checkers" at PolitiFact felt the urgency to defend the president from the tongue-in-cheek mockery.
13. PolitiFact's fact-check garnered criticism across social media platforms, with several accusing the outlet of bias, dishonesty and of "twisting facts." "It’s not like @PolitiFact has any credibility," NewsBuster's Dan Gainor tweeted. "And this is why."
14. more calling PolitiFact left-biased
15. The so-called "fact-checking" news outlet Critics panned the liberal fact-checker for its "false" ruling on Trump's remarks.
16. A new study suggests that PolitiFact is doing more to "defend" President Biden rather than fact-check him.
17. The liberal-slanted "fact-checking" website PolitiFact was the butt of the joke on Thursday over a job opening on its so-called "misinformation team." Critics pummeled the fact-checking website and its reporter for unintentional "honesty."

Evidence added by Anachronist

1. (2021) "Biden's climate requirements" will "cut 90% of red meat from diet" to a "max 4 lbs per year" and "one burger per month." - FALSE - from TV but shown on news programs.
2. (2022) Natural immunity protects better than vaccination; "the mortality risk of an un-boosted person under age 30 was zero"; cloth face masks, school closures had zero benefits for children and some harm - MOSTLY FALSE - although this one is under "Opinion," it does claim to be written by a doctor, and offers specific health info.