FOX News, a station with the motto “Fair & Balanced”, is often placed under scrutiny for delivering conservatively slanted news and its teeming support of the Republican Party. But according to a recent study at the University of Maryland involving a blind study of students, results show that FOX news has a politically neutral and accurate news rating.
In an experiment, which involved students reading articles stripped of all logos, authors and advertisements, 60% of readers of the FOX News article found it to be politically neutral and slightly accurate. Secondly, a majority of participants believed the FOX News article originated from CNN.
The experiment had 40 students read 1 of 3 randomly distributed anonymous articles from FOX, MSNBC and CNN. The articles had all news logos, authors or advertisements removed that would be indicative of the articles origins. The participants were then surveyed regarding the articles accuracy, political bias and original source. A majority of participants considered their political affiliation as independents.
“Its interesting that results seem to contradict the FOX News networks persona of a conservative political bias so often harked on by politicians and comedians such as Jon Stewart,” said experiment leader Evan Thornton.
Another interesting result from the experiment was that 50% of readers of the anonymous MSNBC article believed the article expressed a conservative bias and 41% believed it originated from FOX News.
Thornton said, “These results seem to be quite ironic as FOX news is notoriously conservative and MSNBC is infamously liberal.”
Other results of the experiment showed that the CNN article was rated as accurate and an original source could not be identified with a majority. Thornton believes these results reflect CNN’s politically balanced persona.
Researchers believe their findings could lead to a larger experiment that could further investigate into perceived political biases with anonymous sources.
Another interesting result from the experiment was that 50% of readers of the anonymous MSNBC article believed the article expressed a conservative bias and 41% believed it originated from FOX News.
Thornton said, “These results seem to be quite ironic as FOX news is notoriously conservative and MSNBC is infamously liberal.”
Other results of the experiment showed that the CNN article was rated as accurate and an original source could not be identified with a majority. Thornton believes these results reflect CNN’s politically balanced persona.
Researchers believe their findings could lead to a larger experiment that could further investigate into perceived political biases with anonymous sources.
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