Fox News Channel’s “Fair and Balanced” tagline has long been seen as a ridiculous assertion by its left-leaning critics, but the conservative cable giant may do a better job of straight reporting than its liberal counterpart, MSNBC.
That is one of the many takeaways gleaned from the Pew Research Center’s annual “State of the News Media” report, which examines a wealth of data on the television news industry in a section called “The Changing TV News Landscape.” According to the report, released on Monday by Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism,” MSNBC devoted a mere 15 percent of its airtime to factual reporting during a three days of specified programming last year. The other 85 percent was devoted to commentary and opinion -- a statistic that will not surprise viewers who spent any time with Rachel Maddow during the presidential election.
During the same three-day period, Fox News devoted 45 percent of its airtime to factual reporting and 55 percent to commentary and opinion. Conversely, the proudly objective CNN was the only network that dedicated more of its airtime to straight news than punditry -- 54 percent compared with 46 percent. But at the same time, the network has cut back on its in-depth stories and coverage of live events.
According to Pew, an individual story was considered commentary or opinion if it included opinionated statements 25 percent of the time. If not, the story was considered a factual reported piece. The report does not mention if researchers took into account whether factual stories were reported with bias, just that MSNBC devoted more airtime to content that was packaged as commentary.
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| Fox News: Actually reports the news |
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