Recently, The Washington Post and its partners at the Schar School conducted a national poll to examine, among other things, false beliefs held by Americans. We presented several issues, including those centered around the 2020 election, Russian interference in the 2016 election, and climate change, and asked respondents to choose their accurate view on each. Ta. Republicans (and Republican-leaning independents) and those who say FOX News is one of their primary sources of political news are more likely to have false beliefs about the issues presented overall It was much higher than that.
Because of the overlap between these groups, Republicans who watch FOX News are likely still holding false beliefs.
So which one is it? Is Fox News reinforcing false beliefs, or is it simply not telling its viewers what they don't want to hear (as host Laura Ingraham once claimed)?
Well, we got some answers Monday night when prime-time host Jesse Watters offered a disingenuous attack on President Biden and his administration.
Watters began by saying, “The entire Biden administration is a mirage.” why? Because “we're paying more for everything and yet we're told inflation is going down.”
In fact, although prices remain high, inflation is lower than in 2021 and 2022 (considering the lack of inflation). deflattening).
“They say the economy is great, but jobs are going to immigrants,” Watters continued.
Unemployment is low and consumer confidence is high, but economic greatness is certainly subjective. The policy of “immigrants for jobs'' is a good sign that the economy is doing well. This is a way for Fox News and the Republican Party to try to suppress job growth by misleadingly presenting employment statistics.
Watters continued, “Biden migrants will go straight to our airports to let us know that border crossings are suspended.”
Again, no, this is just right-wing bubble rhetoric.
But in the end, Watters got to his point.
“Now they say there's no crime wave,” he says. “But do you feel safe?”
What followed (after Mr. Watters warned viewers about the graphic footage they were about to see) was a montage of taped violent incidents — three incidents, to be exact.
“So if crime is everywhere, why do we say crime is decreasing?” Watters concluded.
It's so stupid that it annoys me the more I have to think about it. It would be foolish to point to three crimes and then say that crimes are “everywhere.” It's also foolish to say that just because something is “everywhere” there can't be less of it. When the moon hid the sun a few hours before Watters' show, sunlight was still everywhere. So why does everyone say the moon is preventing it?
But the answer to this question is that people say crime is decreasing because the best measures of crime show that crime is decreasing. These measures are very imperfect, that's a fact – and as I wrote. For example, I wrote about this before the 2022 midterm elections when Fox News was claiming without evidence that crime was surging. Watters called me a liar. Then the FBI finally released the crime data it had collected slowly and incompletely. And it turns out that Fox's hype is actually unfounded.
Part of my argument in 2022 was that there is no more uniform evidence that crime is increasing than there is evidence that crime is decreasing. The bureau publishes crime ratings from local police departments each year, but those ratings vary, especially since the bureau changed what it collects. The slow response also makes it difficult to assess national crime patterns in real time, making it all too easy to cherry-pick incidents and numbers to stoke fear.
So, back to Watters in 2024.
“Why should I trust the FBI? Well, it turns out I shouldn't,” he said Monday. “The Washington Examiner investigated and found that the FBI had fabricated the books.” He claimed the Biden administration was conducting “Enron-style accounting” for crimes.
The Examiner article he points to flaws in the FBI's data, which have been the focus of discussion for nearly two years, so Watters likely was aware of. But it's also a point that has been raised countless times in recent months, and one that Mr. Watters sought to exploit as a trap.
“In fact, since 2019, homicides have increased by 23 percent in 70 cities,” Watters announced triumphantly.
That's right, man. no kidding. The point is From 2021murders are down, according to the nation's best indicators.
This is just a basic Dunning-Kruger situation. Watters has been cherry-picking crime data for years, but he learns a little about it and decides the whole system is rotten. He doesn't know enough yet to know how much he knows. Of course, apart from the videos of these three incidents that purport to show that crime is “everywhere,” he has no evidence to the contrary.
Watters then interviewed former New York City police inspector Paul Mauro. He agreed with Watters, saying, “The system is rotten.” Yes, confirmation.
However, I will leave you with an excerpt of the conversation between Mauro and Watters, which goes back to the original question. Is Fox News spreading misinformation, or are people who accept misinformation attracted to Fox News?
“Do you think the media knows what they're doing?” Watters asked Mauro, hinting that the press might be trying to cover up a hidden reality.
“Yeah. Of course,” Mauro replied. “There's enough adverse reporting out there that if you really look at what's been going on since Joe Biden took office, we're not going to get the great storyline that we're hoping for. So let's take what we know works for us and go with it.”
“It's all a storyline for them,” Watters agreed.
Jesse, with whom? And for what purpose?