Fox Corporation has the exact opposite problem of its competition.
As left-leaning newsrooms, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, etc., struggle with the obvious problem that their reporting errors on the White House always seem to go in the same anti-Trump direction, Fox’s errors always seem to go in the administration’s favor.
Case in point: The Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs, a rabid Trump devotee, touted an on-air graphic Wednesday evening showing the president supposedly enjoys a 55% overall approval rating. The same graphic also showed Trump’s approval rating on the economy is at roughly 58%.
But the survey, conducted by Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service, found the president has an unfavorable rating of 55%, while a much smaller 41% said they have a favorable opinion. The poll also found that 52% of respondents say they disprove of the job Trump is doing as president, while 43% say they approve.
The survey did at least find that 58% of respondents say they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. So, at least Dobbs was only a little bit off there.
Distressingly enough, the president himself shared the erroneous graphic on his Twitter account Thursday morning, distributing actual fake news to his more than 59 million followers:
Great news! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/haZ1HbVpNu
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2019
The error was bad enough that the Fox Business Network issued on-air correction Thursday.
“It’s been a quiet start to the day for President Trump, though he did send out a tweet this morning from the Lou Dobbs show last night on Fox Business,” Washington correspondent Blake Burman said. “That tweet featured a poll that was not entirely accurate, which Fox Business would like to correct.”
He added in his note of correction, “According to a poll from Georgetown University, 58% of respondents approved of the president’s handling of the economy. That portion of the graphic was right. However, the graphic also showed that 55% of the respondents approve of the president, that number is not correct. The 55% number was those who have an unfavorable impression of President Trump.”
The president’s tweet, which carries with it the joyous proclamation of “Great news! #MAGA,” has not been removed from his social media page.
It may seem like a small thing, but it’s not. The graphic’s chief claim is factually inaccurate, it’s the product of a pro-Trump zealot with a national platform, and it is currently being shared all over the country and the world by the president’s fans and allies.
There has been a great deal of slipshod and unethical behavior from the press in its reckless crusade to bring down the president, but it’s important to note that there has also been a good deal of reckless news reporting and commentary performed on his behalf. Both are worthless. Both are dangerous.
