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Fox News summary judgment

I read two caveats around published data on Fox's knowing promotion of the Big Lie raised in the last RfC - that it was court filings, not established facts, and that it was from opinion sources, not news. The legal situation has developed, not necessarily to Fox's advantage. Summary judgment has been granted in part to Dominion (https://www.npr.org/2023/03/31/1167526374/judge-rules-fox-hosts-claims-about-dominion-were-false-says-trial-can-proceed). The arguments that this was either opinion or accurate reporting of notable claims are both rejected in the judgment (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23736885-dominion-v-fox-summary-judgment). It is clear from the facts established that the problem was not opinions, or reportage around a false narrative, but provably false statements of fact.

In the Karen McDougal lawsuit, Carlson's (successful) defence was that no reasonable person would take anything he says seriously - very much the Wikipedia consensus that has governed use of Fox as a source for some time. The judgment forestalls that argument. Whether they were uttered with actual malice remains a question for the jury, as it relies on their assessment of the state of mind of the various individuals involved, but this distinguishes the Big Lie from the habitual use of hyperbole by opinion hosts.

It's also bigger than the opinion shows, regardless of whether anyone would mistake them for news. We now know that when Neil Cavuto cut away from a White House presser in which Kayleigh McEnany aired Big Lie claims, Raj Shah notified senior Fox News and Fox Corporation leadership of the 'Brand Threat' posed by Cavuto’s action. Cavuto is a news anchor, not an opinion host. When Jacqui Heinrich, a reporter, tweeted "top election infrastructure officials [confirmed that] there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised", Carlson texted "Please get her fired [...] Seriously… What the fuck? I'm actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke." Heinrich then deleted her tweet. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott wrote to Lachlan Murdoch: "It's a question of trust the AZ [call] was damaging but we will highlight our stars and plant flags letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them" and "We can fix this but we cannot smirk at our viewers any longer."

This shows a Fox exec team determination to steer its content to what the viewers wanted to hear (because they were deserting Fox for NewsMax) rather than objective fact. With hindsight, this was obvious the day they sacked Chris Stirewalt for correctly calling AZ for Biden. Benkler et. al. described exactly this dynamic in Network Propaganda - in my view it has always been a "when, not if" thing. We have been working on the basis that Fox's obvious dishonesty applies only to opinion programming, but I would suggest that we now have sound evidence that - at least since 2020 - it also infects editorial policy, and that this is acknowledged by those responsible. Notwithstanding the "boiling frog" problem of the creeping radicalisation of Fox leading to endless RfCs after each new outrage, it would be a mistake to think that 2023 Fox News is the same beast as 2019 Fox News. It's not. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:28, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Can we set a cutoff point where it clearly turned unusably bad? (I mean, I'd concur that Fox was launched in bad faith, but ...) - David Gerard (talk) 23:24, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
2016 for sure, when they became the personal press for the Trump Administration. Zaathras (talk) 02:09, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
The least contentious point would probably be after the Arizona call, since that appears to have been the catalyst for a conscious decision by management to publish knowing falsehoods more widely than the opinion shows in order to preserve audience share. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
While I'm on the record as saying they were already unreliable, the Arizona call strikes me as the most obvious inflection point, yes, since coverage here seems to show that after that, the distinction between news and opinion largely started to collapse as the owners panicked and gave news hosts like Bartiromo the green light to spread outright falsehoods in non-opinion venues. --Aquillion (talk) 20:33, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
No. The problem here was the talk shows, not the news reporting. Additionally, what if Fox decides to be more careful going forward? As with the previous discussions, the problem element is already viewed as not reliable. Springee (talk) 10:40, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
what if Fox decides to be more careful going forward? Then that remarkable and entirely hypothetical event would be worth a new discussion. the problem element is already viewed as not reliable The issue is precisely that we have the court evidence it was not confined to one element, per the above - David Gerard (talk) 11:49, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
  • The problem here was the talk shows - that seems to be specifically untrue. The entire issue here is that there's increasing evidence that the news side is subject to pressure to avoid contradicting the talk shows, and in some cases has also published falsehoods, which makes it equally unreliable. In particular, Bartiromo, whose statements at the center of the case, was classified by Fox as a news anchor at the time. From here (linked above): Prior to Dominion's claims that Fox was defaming it in late 2020, the network classified Bartiromo as a news anchor, not an opinion host. Or in more detail here, But the difference with Bartiromo is she identifies as a news anchor, as she indicated in her testimony. She was one of the ones most vocally spreading claims that Fox knew was false; and she was doing it as news, in her capacity as a news anchor, not as opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 20:17, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
It was. And then it changed. Evidence in this case very clearly shows executives responding to demands from the opinion side that the non-opinion side of Fox stop "disrespecting" viewers by giving them accurate information. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:02, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
A thing to keep in mind is that every source that is a for-profit company is going to be thinking along the same lines as Fox, in that they will focus and adjust how it presents the news to keep their audience happy and thus maintain and/or gain new subscribers. This is not to say that the NYTimes operates as heavily biased as Fox did in the years in question, but we do have to keep that in mind. A more "obvious" example is the Wall Street Journal, which, ignoring its editorial board, still favors news that impact the wealthy, and thus tends to be more right-leaning than other news sources. Pure objective news coverage is dead because there's no market for that type of coverage.
Yes, what Fox did here is a problem for us in how we use them, but lets be clear that some of its actions at the core are those other sources readily follow as well. Masem (t) 22:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
This sort of spurious equivocation between Fox and the NYT is a common pro-Fox talking point on RSN, and it isn't any more convincing this time around - David Gerard (talk) 10:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
I clearly pointed out that what the NYTimes may do compared to what Fox does is definitely not equivalent in terms of impact on current bias, but simply that we should never pretend this doesn't happen at works like the NYTimes. They have a paying audience which they serve first and foremost over neutral news coverage, and while their neutral coverage really hasn't taken that big of a hit from it, its still there in the sidelines (eg their writing on trans rights has left much to be desired). Masem (t) 12:21, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
We have concrete evidence here of Fox News' malfeasance, there is no such equivalent for the NY Times. {{|we should never pretend this doesn't happen at works like the NYTimes}} is just you handwaving as what you imagine to exist. False equivalence. ValarianB (talk) 12:32, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm not trying to say we need to take action against the NYTimes because there's no evidence they have done it purposefully or with malfeasance, or at the scale Fox has. But this should remain a guiding factor when evaluating sources in the future, that most news organizations have a commercial motive that they have had to adopt since the 2000s to keep alive. Most of the time, that may only become apparent in small parts of their coverage, but in the case of Fox, the evidence is clearly against their use of favoring the readers' interests rather than journalistic integrity. Masem (t) 12:51, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
NYTimes investigative reporting brought down Eliot Spitzer, New York’s Democratic governor; derailed the election campaign of his Democratic successor, David Paterson; got Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat who was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, in ethics trouble; and exposed the falsehoods that Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, another Democrat, told about his Vietnam service. Fox and the NYTimes don't belong in the same paragraph. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:04, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
There is no such thing as an utterly unbiased source; but WP:BIASED covers a more narrow and specific sort of bias - obviously if you consider every source equally biased then the policy becomes useless; I don't think there's any room to seriously entertain people who argue that the entire mainstream media falls under BIASED. But either way, with both sources that meet the threshold of BIASED and those that do not, there are still reliable sources - ones that don't allow their biases, such as they are, to taint the accuracy of their coverage. And then there are some unreliable sources, where a source's biases lead them to eg. allow their news anchors to publish intentional falsehoods because it advances some institutional agenda In those cases, the bias is a noteworthy component of their unreliability because it suggests that the problem is institutional and systematic. Obviously the coverage here suggests that Fox is the latter. (An obvious caveat is that I believed that previous coverage already adequately established this; but this makes it glaringly obvious that they do not maintain the separation between news and opinion that some people in previous RFCs hoped they did.) That is not something that is common among the mainstream media, hence why this lawsuit is making such a splash. --Aquillion (talk) 20:29, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm afraid it is true that the media are all biased, some much more so than others. But what happens with a 'reliable source' is they go in for ignoring inconvenient truths and things their audience don't like or doing a bit of spin rather than sticking in outright lies. Outright lies puts them definitely in the not reliable camp. NadVolum (talk) 11:54, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
See "Network Propaganda" by Benkler et. al. There is asymmetric polarization in US media. Liberal-leaning media (e.g. MSNBC) will lose viewers if they publish ideologically preferred but factually inaccurate content. As the filings and the summary judgment show, Fox, an exemplar of right-wing media, has the exact opposite dynamic. Customers will desert if given factually information that is ideologically unacceptable. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
"Customers will desert if given factually information that is ideologically unacceptable." Great, an echo chamber in action. I will not not speculate what is their brand of a purity test is, but we have established that Faux News can no longer claim that it is "reliable for statements of fact". Dimadick (talk) 04:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
What new information do we have now that would change the non-consensus from just after Dominion released these messages? The summary judgement seems to be based on statements made by the commentary shows. Where is the new information that says the news programs are releasing false information? This would seem just to support the status quo conclusion we already have. We don't have a problem with people excessively relying on Fox News as a RS for contentious claims. Springee (talk) 13:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
No, you missed a key point of the coverage. Maria Bartiromo, who was the source of some of the defamatory claims at issue, was classified by Fox as a news anchor at the time, not a talk show host. (See here, Prior to Dominion's claims that Fox was defaming it in late 2020, the network classified Bartiromo as a news anchor, not an opinion host - or in more detail here, But the difference with Bartiromo is she identifies as a news anchor, as she indicated in her testimony.) Fox has retroactively taken to calling her a talk show host, but I'm sure that you understand that from the perspective of our policies, that makes things even worse - it means that Fox doesn't maintain a clear distinction between news and opinion, which resolves one of the key issues that previously blocked us from reaching a consensus on their unreliability. If Fox themselves is inconsistent on whether Bartiromo is a news anchor or an opinion host, and if she was saying false and defamatory things while they were calling her a news anchor, then clearly that suggests that we can no longer reasonably split Fox into news / opinion sections - if they're not making a clear distinction, then they have to be judged as a whole. Likewise, failing to distinguish between news and opinion is one of the textbook indicators of an unreliable source, especially when they have someone who is notionally on the news side publishing what the network as a whole knows are deliberate falsehoods. --Aquillion (talk) 20:17, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Did we treat her commentary as need reporting or as commentary? Can you show examples where FN is being used inappropriately? Springee (talk) 20:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
With all due respect Springee, I don't follow the logic here. Why would we need existing examples of inappropriate use? Does lack of evidence for inappropriate use mean that all future uses are per se appropriate? Entirely possible I am missing something. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:43, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
The evidence doesn't show that FN's news reporting is unreliable. It shows that the talk shows are clearly not reliable. We already say FN political and science reporting is use with care/discretion. Do we have examples where that caution hasn't been followed? If not, what is the issue? What about the previous RfC is no longer valid? Springee (talk) 21:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Incidentally, I think it would be hard to find an example where I introduced (vs argued that an existing reference is acceptable) Fox as a source. I'm not sure I ever have. Springee (talk) 21:49, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm certainly not accusing you of doing so--but Aquillion has introduced an argument above as to why we can't simply rely on the talk/news distinction anymore; I find it persuasive. You may not, but you haven't really addressed it. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Did we treat the person in question as an anchor or as a source of commentary? I presume we already put her in the same bucket as Carlson thus already not a RS. Springee (talk) 23:19, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
The problem is that the network itself equivocated on her role, meaning (at least for myself and Aquillion) that the division has become at least somewhat porous. To me, that's enough--we have an admittedly unreliable opinion side which (again, to me) is not clearly cordoned off from news, and thus I think the entire operation is presumptively unreliable, but as ever, reasonable minds may differ. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:34, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
"In the Karen McDougal lawsuit, Carlson's (successful) defence was that no reasonable person would take anything he says seriously [...] -@Guy"
Not really. His defense was that it was hyperbole. Harry Sibelius (talk) 07:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
"Please get her fired [...] Seriously… What the fuck? I'm actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It's measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke."
I'm still not really understanding what the allegation of wrongdoing is here. I see this quote repeated on this noticeboard a lot as evidence that Fox intentionally lied about the 2020 American election, but I have never seen anyone explain how. I have also seen editors reproduce Carlson's quotes regarding his hatred of Trump, as well as his negation of Sidney Powell's claims regarding Dominion, seemingly as evidence of Fox's lying. It's also not clear to me what these facts have to do with Fox's credibility--the latter even seems to evince Fox's credibility, since Tucker Carlson attacked Powell's Dominion-Venezuelan voter-fraud theory both in private, and on his show. Harry Sibelius (talk) 07:29, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Tucker Carlson, a high profile star and stockholder, was demanding that fact-checking of Trump's big lie should stop, because viewers were deserting Fox for OANN and Newsmax, and it was hurting the stick price. This would not happen in a legitimate journalistic enterprise. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
That's clearly untrue, because he attacked the Venezuela-conspiracy claims himself, publicly. How does it fit your theory that he attacked some claims of voter fraud, but not others? And are you honestly saying that no "legitimate journalistic enterprise" does not care about stocks or ratings? Harry Sibelius (talk) 07:06, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
No legitimate journalistic enterprise would continue to report what it knew to be false information because doing so would hurt its ratings or its circulation or its stock price. A news source with journalistic integrity would bite the bullet, issue corrections, and then take whatever non-journalistic steps were necessary to bolster its ratings, circulation, or stock price. I suppose there are those -- such as the folks at Fox News -- that think that the other course of action is acceptable, but they clearly don't really understand what journalism is supposed to be about. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:09, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
What exactly is the claim that they knew to be false information, but promoted anyway? I often see it claimed that it was Tucker Carlson's assertion, in private, that Sydney Powell's claims were false. But he also asserted that they were false publicly, on the Fox News channel. There is no contradiction there. When Carlson said that Heinrich should be fired for saying that "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised", this does not contradict his attacks on Powell, which were never private or hidden from the public in any way. The two claims are not equal, and can only be connected tendentiously.
If A alleges that B specifically did not steal the election, and C alleges that the election was not stolen at all, and A attacks C for saying so, that does not mean that A has contradicted themselves in any way whatsoever. Harry Sibelius (talk) 09:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I've believed that Fox should not be considered a reliable source for quite a while, but just to be very clear about this I do indeed believe that this new evidence is relevant and that it establishes beyond a shadow of a doubt that they fail our standards for being a reliable source at least dating from November 2020, if not earlier. Loki (talk) 02:00, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Just as a brief addendum to my colloquy with Sprringee above, this is very much my take, and for me, the date of the 2020 election is as good a cutoff as any (though I can see arguments for earlier). Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 02:24, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
I generally agree with the above takes, but I would propose March 15th (the beginning of covid lockdowns and close to the beginning of serious campaigning for the 2020 election) as the cutoff date. Googleguy007 (talk) 14:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
If some solid justification could be provided, I wouldn't be opposed to that either. But, the current evidence seems to weigh mostly on events post-election.
I personally feel like if not November 2020, there just shouldn't be a cutoff date: some of the issues with Fox have been long-standing and while it definitely seems to have gotten notably worse in November 2020, issues revealed in this court case do seem to bear on their editorial policy in general. It's not clear to me, for instance, that Fox ever made a clear internal distinction between opinion and news. Loki (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Yeah. There's no clear cutoff date because Fox has literally always been like this - David Gerard (talk) 21:37, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
While I may empathize with that sentiment, I wouldn't condone going back further unless it is also backed by RS, which may or may not be possible. The 2020 "Big Lie" Dominion debacle is documented, and therefore something every reasonable editor (regardless of their persuasion) should be able to agree on. It's conceivable that this event may have a domino effect that creates doubt that goes further back in time, but it requires RS and we definitely should start at 2020. DN (talk) 02:13, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
This is a change that would require a new RfC. Springee (talk) 10:30, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't be against an RfC, but this seems to be a policy issue, and RfCs do not supersede policy. DN (talk) 14:14, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
It's not a policy issue. WP:V is policy. A blanket view that FN is or isn't a RS in some given subject area is not a policy question. Additionally, this would be trying to supersede a recent and very well attended RfC. Springee (talk) 14:17, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
This falls under the umbrella of WP:V, ie the reliability of a source, "Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source. In Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable source". To paraphrase Aquillion, FN does not maintain the separation between news and opinion that some people in previous RFCs hoped they did.DN (talk) 14:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
I am disappointed that you are arguing for FNC. Coverage of this case very clearly shows that the opinion side drives policy. Notional news anchors were coerced into following the demands of opinion host (and stockholder) Tucker Carlson. Whether this was out of concern for financial impact or personal ideology is largely irrelevant.
Recall, Fox News is largely the result of Roger Ailes, a media advisor to Nixon, setting out to ensure that no future Republican should be forced to resign after being found out criming. The only person who would see this as anything other than "broken by design" is Mary Poppins. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:15, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
Remember, those are claims made by Dominion selectively releasing information. We don't know the opposing side's version of events. In all of this I don't recall seeing anyone claim the news side was proving bad content. The talk side may have driven what they wanted the news side to focus on but that isn't the same as false information from the news side. Combine that with the lack of evidence that editors are using Fox disruptively and the fact that we already say use with caution and I don't see an issue that needs to be fixed. Springee (talk) 23:25, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
To expand on this, Wikipedia has an issue in that, instead of deciding to use sources on a case by case basis we often resort to blanket decisions. In general those decisions are more favorable to sources on the left vs right. This can result in a skew in our articles. As an example, take the indictment of Trump by DA Bragg (or any of the other potential cases against Trump). In articles on those cases we presumably want a range of legal analysis/opinions on the way the law is being applied to the facts in question. If we only cite news sources on the left we risk having only analysis that left leaning audiences. It's easy to claim this is just a case of the right not picking good sources. However, take someone like Allan Dershowitz. In most cases if we are reporting legal opinions/analysis on a subject and Dershowitz offers one, it's probably DUE. It certainly comes from a one of the absolute top US legal scholars. However, sources like CNN don't ask him to come on. According to Dershowitz, most sources on the left no longer talk with him because he defended Trump during his first impeachment. This means in the end we may not get balanced coverage of the legal opinions on a topic because we have decided that sources that carry opinions that are more likely to appeal to the right are not reliable and thus can't be included. I think that is a serious blind spot in our neutrality. I certainly can see the issue if we were to pack Biden's article with every negative thing reported by Fox. However, if we have an article about the legality of something the president or Congress etc is trying to do then we are doing a disservice to readers if we remove Dershowitz'z opinion from our list of "reactions" simply because his views were part of a Fox vs CNN interview. Springee (talk) 00:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Please reduce the verbiage. I already commented on your Dershowitz analogy. And I was polite enough to not include that highly regarded legal experts disagree with him with increasing frequency. And your claim that no one on the left will speak with him is unsourced and imaginative; and your comment that we are doing a disservice to readers if we remove Dershowitz'z opinion from our list of "reactions" simply because his views were part of a Fox vs CNN interview. is also unsourced. Frankly, I don't see why you keep talking about him. Are you saying that only Fox, of the massive news sources, will say anything about him? If that's true, wonder what the reason is. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Please check the time stamps. The edit above (00:06, 19 April 2023) was the first time I mentioned Dershowitz and predates your first comment on the subject (13:22, 19 April 2023). Springee (talk) 00:47, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
OK I'll strike; but twice is twice too many. It's not a good example. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:03, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Specifically re. Dersh, people won't ask him for his opinions as a legal scholar because he flushed his own reputation down the toilet.
His lawsuit against CNN for "ruining his reputation" by accurately reporting his actual words, failed, because he'd already said that his reputation had been ruined by the Epstein allegations.
We're not in danger as a project from not hearing Dersh's hot takes on anything. He was a respected legal scholar, he's now a hack, and nothing he says can be taken at face value. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:30, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I know this is a bit off topic but, to set the record straight, the lawsuit failed not because the judge ruled Dershowitz wasn't defamed. It failed because he wasn't able to show that CNN's actions met the actual malice standard [1]. CNN didn't accurately report his words when they truncated a quote and then suggested Dershowitz said something he specifically did not.
From the ABA Journal article, Dershowitz claimed that a shortened clip and CNN news commentators falsely suggested that he thought that a president could do anything—including illegal acts—as long as a president thinks that it is in the public interest. Dershowitz had actually argued that a president can’t be impeached simply because he takes action based on a desire to be reelected, if a president thinks their reelection is in the public interest. But Dershowitz had also said a president can be impeached if they did something illegal, regardless of their motive. Dershowitz complained that CNN should not have taken out this sentence in edited clips: “The only thing that would make a quid pro quo unlawful is if the quo were some way illegal.”
Also from the article, ... while actual malice wasn’t established, the facts did show “foolishness, apathy and an inability to string together a series of common legal principles” on CNN’s part, Singhal said. Springee (talk) 16:21, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Then he wasn't defamed under the legal definition. And, I agree with all that Guy posted. But then, why would we want to get into a legal argument here. Not our job. O3000, Ret. (talk) 16:51, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I just feel the need to pipe in very briefly about Dersh -- he is obviously notable and his opinions might well be notable, but he is very much an outlier on many things (a statement with which I believe he would agree), and so we have to be careful about according him too much weight, as that might be WP:UNDUE in some circumstances where he is alone or part of a very small group in the legal academy. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Guy said CNN accurately reported his statements. The judge disagrees. Springee (talk) 17:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
Nope.

As CNN aptly argued during the hearing on this case, there is no requirement under the First Amendment for a reporter to talk about everything Dershowitz has ever said about impeachment or even all the various ways one can be impeached.

In context, he said:

Policy-based judicial opinions have had a twisted history in American jurisprudence. Some rulings are just ridiculously bad despite what common sense demands and what the author may have thought. See Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857). Other decisions cause deep-rooted political and emotional turmoil by creating a “Constitutional right” that others then believe in, that isn’t anywhere in the U.S. Constitution. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). And in the case of New York Times v. Sullivan, the United States Supreme Court’s holding—while laudable in a different era—that the First Amendment requires public figures to establish actual malice simply has no basis in and “no relation to the text, history or structure of the Constitution, and it baldly constitutionalized an area of law refined over centuries of common law adjudication.” Tah v. Global Witness Publishing, Inc., 991 F.3d 231, 251 (D.C. Cir. 2021) (Silberman, J. dissenting).

(Emphasis added). I take it we all know what "dissenting" means. FedSoc judges are constantly quoting dissents. They want to strike down settled law, here explicitly including Sullivan, to allow the super-rich to stifle criticism.
Reminder:

It is understandable why Dershowitz brings this case. Once Dershowitz responded to Senator Cruz’ question, reporters and commentators from around the globe ran with his answer in today’s “race to publish” world and spoke about his January 29 comments without contextualizing the comments with what had been said on January 27, and without any reference to impeachment law. And again, they were not required by law to do so.

Emphasis added. What he's arguing, is that he wishes they were required by law to do so, to apply maximum deference to obvious bad-faith arguments, to allow the powerful to silence criticism. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:49, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Actually they did accurately report his words. His beef was that they didn't report them the way he would have preferred, after the event. He knows that he advanced a monumentally silly argument, for which he was roundly criticised not just by CNN but by pretty much every respectable legal commentator. Singhal's comment doesn't undermine CNN, it's in the context of FedSoc's intent to strike down Sullivan - a long-term goal in service of the hyper-privileged, which we have heard from Trump (who appointed Singhal), Thomas, and others.
You don't get summary judgment if it's a close call.The judgment itself [2] contains a pretty brutal slapdown of Dersh's abject failure to meet the required standard of pleading. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:38, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
This seems to be a gap between "did CNN's actions meet the legal standard" and "did CNN accurately report what Dersh said". It's clear the judge thinks the legal standard wasn't met but not because CNN's reporting accurately reported what Dersh said. There is a big difference between, "You can do what you want so long as it is legal" vs "You can do what you want". Leaving off a very important qualifier, as CNN did, is either grossly incompetent reporting or a lie by omission. Since the standard for a public figure would have to be lie by omission we can assume the judge felt the evidence only rose to grossly incompetent. I think my quote from the judge is sufficient to show CNN didn't accurately report what Dersh said. Springee (talk) 19:46, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Given that we already say don’t use the talk shows, and already strongly caution editors about using Fox for certain topics (especially politics and science), I really don’t see a need for this. Blueboar (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
    • Given how the sort of editor who adds Fox as a source observably behaves, we clearly do - David Gerard (talk) 13:38, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
      Can you show an example of this? Honestly, this comes off as a bit of a character attack/personal attack against unnamed editors. Springee (talk) 13:59, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
      Editors that ignore RS in favor of a particular POV would be the example here. DN (talk) 14:12, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
      Again, do we have examples of this? If not then the existing RSP entry works fine. Springee (talk) 14:16, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
      If you look at articles regarding Trump, the 2020 election, the Biden's, the Clinton's etc... you will probably find some edits of this nature. DN (talk) 02:26, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      Can you provide links to any examples? I don't follow those topics and honestly, try to avoid them. Springee (talk) 03:07, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      Seconded. This seems like a reach. Harry Sibelius (talk) 06:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
      I agree that we do, and copious evidence of problem attempts to use Fox have been provided. I also agree that it would be great to establish that Fox is generally unreliable starting in 2020 even if prior to that remains as status quo. Andre🚐 18:42, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      Can you share some example links? Springee (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      Here's a recentish example [3] Andre🚐 18:55, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      What's the issue? It seems like a reasonable add. It seems reasonable to use Fox as a source for an attributed POV. Unless your perspective is that any political content cited to Fox is unacceptable, a view not supported by the last RfC. Springee (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      Looking into your example a bit more, it was added once then removed. How is that an issue. There was no edit warring and, right or wrong, the content didn't make it to the article. Honestly, this is a very poor example of a "problem". Springee (talk) 19:06, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      This seems to be going off-topic quickly, and the goal posts seem to be moving. The discussion here is about the recent summary judgement against FN, and how that relates to it's assigned level of reliability. To reiterate, as far as this discussion is concerned, what unnamed editors are doing with FN is less relevant than what FN has been doing. If anyone wants to discuss editor behavior, maybe start a separate discussion somewhere else, otherwise it may be hatted, as it seems fairly off-topic. Cheers.DN (talk) 19:22, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      What goal post is shifting? I asked where the use of Fox was problematic. The diff offered doesn't support the view that Fox is being used problematically. It does relate to the overall question since any change to RSP entry should include some indication that we are fixing a problem. Springee (talk) 22:35, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
      Springee, this noticeboard (and discussion) is about reliable sources...not reliable editors...DN (talk) 00:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
      I don't understand your reply. Springee (talk) 04:41, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
      A Fox RSP entry does exist, and that entry needs to contain accurate information on how Fox should or should not be used in the future. The subject of current or past editor behavior is unnecessary to that discussion. I believe DN was requesting that we all simply drop that topic. Alsee (talk) 05:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
      An earlier comment was that the use of FN has been problematic. I asked for examples and none were provided. Springee (talk) 05:39, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
      None were provided? I think you are mistaken. After an example you requested was given to you, you dismissed it stating "Unless your perspective is that any political content cited to Fox is unacceptable, a view not supported by the last RfC.". From a certain perspective, you provided a brand new example in this very discussion. DN (talk) 08:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
      Again, that isn't an example of a problematic addition. It infact was a perfectly reasonable use. So, no, you are wrong. No examples of problematic use of FN have been provided. Springee (talk) 10:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
      Its reasonableness is disputed, and it substantiates an existence of a disagreement on the usability of Fox for such issues. Our current RFC closure indicates that Fox should be used with caution and possibly not used for controversial political topics, and that it should not be considered a high-quality source. Since policy and guideline already urge multiple high-quality sources for controversial statements and issues, this would not be usable. But, your disagreement proves that Fox should be downgraded since editors are still trying to wiggle it in for issues where it shouldn't be used. Andre🚐 17:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
      Your argument is circular. It pre-supposes that any use of Fox for political content is a problem. So you show an example of someone citing FN and proclaim it proof of a problem. However, your argument is based on the false premise that any use of FN is by definition problematic. That premise conflicts with the "use with caution" RfC closing. By your thinking any use of a yellow source is problematic thus proof that source needs to be downgraded. The burden is on you to show that this example, your example, illustrates a problematic use. An editor added an opinion of the Heritage Foundation reported by Fox with all the required attributions, I presume in good faith (do you think they acted otherwise). Another editor decided it was UNDUE and removed it. Where is the problem? Are you going to suggest any time anyone adds verifiable but arguably UNDUE claims that the source is now problematic? That would at least be logically consistent with your claims here. Springee (talk) 21:24, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
      Do you believe it is acceptable to use FN for politics? O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:31, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
      Per the RfC closing yes. Use with caution is not the same as don't use. Springee (talk) 22:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
      I never said all claims are UNDUE or Fox is UNDUE by definition, it just so happens that most of the time editors want to use it to launder right wing propaganda. Andre🚐 00:33, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
      But you presented that specific diff and said it was evidence of a problem. A single example of FN being used, with no evidence of edit warring etc, without some sort of explanation why it was totally unreasonable to have been ever added doesn't support your case. It might actually be a perfect example but you would have to say why. Springee (talk) 00:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
      I second everything Springee has said.
      @Darknipples, your comment about moving the goalposts is very curious. @David Gerard commented that "Given how the sort of editor who adds Fox as a source observably behaves, we clearly do" [need to downgrade Fox as a source.] You, @Darknipples, seemed to support this, writing that "Editors that ignore RS in favor of a particular POV would be the example here", and that "If you look at articles regarding Trump, the 2020 election, the Biden's, the Clinton's etc... you will probably find some edits of this nature." When there seemed to be a paucity of evidence for such edits, you commented "This seems to be going off-topic quickly, and the goal posts seem to be moving", not seeming to acknowledge that it was you who had moved the goalpoasts. When Springee, reasonably, responded to this about-face with confusion, you condescendingly wrote "Springee, this noticeboard (and discussion) is about reliable sources...not reliable editors..., " despite the fact that it was @David Gerard alleging that there was a problem with "reliable editors", not Springee, and that you were encouraging David Gerard's position, not attacking it. It's all well and good that we return to talking about Fox itself, and not the editors that use it, but I don't think this about-face should go unnoted. Harry Sibelius (talk) 06:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    • "In most cases if we are reporting legal opinions/analysis on a subject and Dershowitz offers one, it's probably DUE." It depends. I would suggest that we should avoid Dershowitz's legal opinions on sexual abuse cases involving minors, since he has been accused of "misconduct"" in such cases since 2015, and he is accused of having non-consensual sex with minors in his own right. Dimadick (talk) 04:54, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
      The person who made that claim recanted [4]. Springee (talk) 05:09, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
      Dersh's legal opinions are not what they were. Very much not. He is now a pariah, by his own admission, and no reputable source calls on him for his legal views, again, by his own admission. He sued CNN for it (and lost). Guy (help! - typo?) 16:18, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • The talk shows of the likes of Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, etc are already unreliable. This does not really change anything...  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 20:32, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Fox News Rating

Looking at WP:FOXNEWS(excluding politics and science) the rating is currently green and considered reliable, while WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS(including politics and science) is white with no consensus. Given the RS provided by Guy at the beginning, I feel both of those ratings need to be reexamined at the very least, and possibly downgraded. DN (talk) 19:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

  • I would agree regarding the political coverage… but not on the rest. Their coverage of mundane news is fine (example: their reporting on things like tornadoes or hurricanes is probably MORE reliable than the other cable outlets, since they can draw from local affiliates for information). Blueboar (talk) 20:16, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    Forgive me if this is something obvious to US based editors, but would the point on affiliates not equally apply to other affiliate based stations with news divisions like NBC, ABC, CBS, etc? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:20, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
  • As was mentioned above, any change like this would require a new RfC. I don't agree that the issues associated with their talk shows warrant a change to their news reporting. Springee (talk) 22:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
    (edit conflict)Only some of the issues are related to the talk shows. And I'm tired of asking when the news shows are on since nobody seems to watch them, whenever they are on. Seriously the "news" media defamation case appears to be the largest lost in history, and an hour after, the Fox News site had a huge article at the top of the main page suggesting someone in the Biden administration cheated in the 2022 election for what was actually a minor infraction in front of a small audience as opposed to KelleyAnne Conway's multiple, widely seen public infractions for which there was no penalty. But, this is all pointless. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    Provide the examples where the issue was the regular reporting. Springee (talk) 00:09, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    This was already provided at the very beginning by Guy and Aquillion, which it seems you dismissed, seemingly without actually reading the parts that mention it involves news anchors and EXECUTIVES. It goes all the way to the top including RUPERT MURDOCH, who quickly took to calling news anchors "hosts". There is undeniable evidence FOX news intentionally blurs the lines between opinion and fact for years and years. How is any reasonable editor able to ignore this well known fact? Here are the diffs...Guy Springee Aquillion....DN (talk) 19:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    I have asked multiple times when is this "regular reporting" and no one responds, presumably because no one watches it. Is Kurtz one of them? He stated two days ago he was ordered not to talk about the case. Is that news? [5] O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
  • The “regular mundane reporting” occurs on programs such as: “Fox News @ Night” with Shannon Bream (airs at midnight), “America’s Newsroom” with Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer (9 - 11 AM), “America Reports” with Sandra Smith and John Roberts (1 -3 PM), and “Special Report” with Bret Baier (6 PM). There is also some mundane news reporting during the morning “Fox and Friends” show… but morning news tends to be superficial no matter the network.
  • That said, I suspect the real issue for Wikipedia isn’t what gets broadcasted on air (and when), but what gets written and published on their website and app. After all, that is what is usually cited here on WP. And I do have to agree that their web site sucks… it over hypes the sensational and partisan stuff, and buries the more mundane stuff. Blueboar (talk) 01:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    This keeps coming up again and again ...... it has been decades since Fox News has been this way. Are Americans not taught about this sort of stuff in school? Moxy- 01:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    "I feel both of those ratings need to be reexamined at the very least, and possibly downgraded." I would support downgrading their reliability in matters of politics. But we haven't heard whether their coverage of science is equally bad. And frankly, I don't see why would editors cite a television network in a topic which it rarely covers. Dimadick (talk) 05:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    I have a feeling FOX NEWS' stance on CLIMATE CHANGE is totally accurate (snark).DN (talk) 05:19, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I agree that given the longstanding but increasing extent and extremity of the issues, and of other RS' reporting on them, "For politics and science [...] Fox News is considered marginally reliable" needs to be revised downward at least after 2020. This isn't a matter of guessing what the court case might have found in the future, but of acknowledging what RS have said, including about things that came out in relation to the case or which the court already did determine. (And "should the existing RSP entry on Fox continue to list them as reliable for politics?" is something we can and should determine based on whether Fox is reliable, not based on Wikipedia editor conduct, pace the one editor asking for examples of the latter.) -sche (talk) 10:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
  • DN is right. The key words are "any reasonable editor". Those who are still in denial need to really think about how anyone can still consider them "reasonable editors". IDHT behavior is tiring and disruptive.
  • Here are the stark facts: Fox News fact-checkers were threatened and news staff blocked from covering the whole story, with the knowledge of the top brass. Fox News has a problem in maintaining their obviously false claims that they are a news agency. No, they are a propaganda agency. They fail the most basic of requirements for being considered a RS.
  • This lawsuit will not change anything. They will just be more careful to not libel companies, but will still tell lies. Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson says Dominion settlement ‘Won’t Change the Way Fox Does News’ -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry but that sort of thinking is deeply flawed. The idea that any editor who might consider citing fox is, by your definition, not a reasonable editor is really problematic. Reasonable editors can disagree and reasonable editors can evaluate sources on a case by case basis. Springee (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    I did not say that. I am thinking of any editor who continues to defend Fox. In every discussion about Fox here, we find the same little group of editors who never change their tune. They always use the same arguments to defend Fox, even in the face of the indefensible. They are learning nothing from the history of Fox News and its consistently serious deviations from journalistic norms. It was never intended to be a normal journalistic news source. It was and is an extension of the GOP and only serves the GOP party line. That's why Roger Ailes created it, and he always defended Nixon and his unethical behavior. "Fox News is no longer the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is the legislative arm of Fox News." It's okay for a source to be openly and honestly related to a political party, but Fox News is deceptive about that issue. That's a problem.
    I definitely agree that reasonable editors can disagree, but around here they are supposed to learn, to know how to vet sources for reliability (a CIR issue), to show a progressive and positive learning curve, and to not sit entrenched in one POV and be unmovable regardless of what RS and other editors tell them. They know when to give up their opposition to progressive information and change their mind. They know when to drop out of the discussion when their opposition to progress is disruptive. That's why we have WP:IDHT. It recognizes that even experienced editors can slide into unreasonable behavior because they are not learning and progressing. We expect editors to demonstrate a positive learning curve and to give up their conservative and regressive ways of thinking that block progress here. Continued defense of Fox News is disruptive. Period. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:51, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Fox News folded and now has to pay Dominion $787,500,000

See NPR - PBS - NBC - APNEWS...DN (talk) 00:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

You listed NPR, PBS, NBC, and AP news sources -- but not Fox News. Google shows dozens of stories in RS. For humor value, read the Fox News story [6]. Although released after the result of the suit, it doesn't say it was resolved. It only says that some of Trump's allies and legal staff made false statements, not Fox. It says nothing about Fox or about the settlement. And the Fox News site looks like a tabloid with three anti-LGBTQ stories and headlining Biden's income. Fox is not a reliable source. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:58, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
As if we needed further evidence: they are even lying to their audience about having lied to their audience. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
A key point here is that we cannot treat any of the reported evidence as being true or what it may seem on paper because the court did not rule on it, and it does not appear to be in the settlement terms that Fox has to agree to admit to lying. Thus, all that evidence that Dominion casted that got discussed here is really hard to do anything with without putting our own prejudices in place. All we know is that they still likely should be avoided for political and science news (as they are now) but little else we can extrapolate from that. --Masem (t) 01:14, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Really? So Fox News just paid $800 million because they thought they were going to win? I can't tell if you're joking or oblivious to the irony of what you are suggesting. DN (talk) 01:17, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
They folded most likely to avoid having a whole bunch of questionable details of their operation bubble to the forefront, including details from Murdoch, etc. While Fox will have to pay a lot of money, this is a win for them in terms that they appear to get scott free with their current news ethics and practices, since this case goes down without any judgement. Masem (t) 01:23, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Unfortunately, this lawsuit was never about righting the wrongs (i.e. the right-wing Lie Machinations) of the Nov 2020 elections. This was only ever about a corporation protecting its shareholder value against another corporation's malfeasance. Zaathras (talk) 01:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
We still have to figure out how this may affect their reliability on Wiki. Fox paid to end the suit, so they obviously lied. The evidence in the case already shows as much. They continued to push The Big Lie to the bitter end. I don't see how any reasonable editor here can be expected to ignore this, or continue to put faith in reports by FN after such an obvious capitulation.DN (talk) 02:21, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Fox paid to end the suit, so they obviously lied. is not a stance we can take. We may want to believe that as much as we want, but there's going to be no legal resolution to that matter. --Masem (t) 02:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
That is completely ignoring the evidence in the case. Do you really expect editors to keep treating FN as reliable after this?DN (talk) 02:34, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
That's like saying a certain RS citation can't be used because some random authoritative figure didn't get a chance to give their opinion on it. DN (talk) 02:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Courts determine legal liability, not reality. You can live in a world where O.J. Simpson is innocent and Bruno Hauptmann guilty, if you like, but that's not the world in which I reside. Reliable sources and commentators have already weighed in on many things found in discovery in this case. Determinations by a court of competent jurisdiction should certainly be taken into account, but "no legal resolution means we must pretend it didn't happen" strikes me as unhelpful. Dumuzid (talk) 02:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm hundred percent with you re "courts determine legal liability, not reality" but that also means that the outcome of this particular case by itself should not have much bearing on the status of FN. As always we should see what RS make of the evidence and summary judgement and follow them. Alaexis¿question? 09:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
ETA: Apologies for ruminating on the fly, but I think it is categorically false that there is no legal resolution to the matter of whether Fox lied. That factual issue was completely disposed of by way of summary judgment. It was decided. The jury could not have found otherwise (indeed, the issue could not have been argued). To quote the judge, it was "crystal clear" that "that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true." That is from p. 43 of the ruling. Now, we can split hairs, I suppose, and say that perhaps the falsehoods were inadvertent, but that strikes me as a bit sophistical. Anyway, I will cease blathering now. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 03:03, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I will agree that you're right, the summary judgment does say Fox lied, but only about their commentary about DVS. A lot more about why Fox News should be downgraded further in the prior discussions were based on additional "lies" that were found in DVS's evidence but not directly tied to DVS (such as Fox not wanting to lose viewers). Because these fall outside the bounds of what the summary judgment gave, and now will remain only evidence (and no verification of truth or not), we have to be careful to take those all as fact in determining Fox News' status. I'll stand that what we have now (unreliable for politics and science, and definitely not anything from their talking-head shows) remains as best consistent with the knowledge from this trial. Masem (t) 03:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Apologies for sort of doubling up on Loki below, but I am still a bit confused (honestly, that's me more than anything else). I would certainly agree that we can't take Dominion's allegations as "true" for any Wikipedia purposes. But certainly we can take note of reliable sources commenting upon things that came out in discovery? Dumuzid (talk) 03:35, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
@Masem: Fox News is not currently unreliable for politics and science. From WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS: For politics and science, there is consensus that the reliability of Fox News is unclear […] As a result, Fox News is considered marginally reliable. Shells-shells (talk) 04:28, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Absolutely not true: if it's reported as true in reliable sources, we can rely on it, even if a court did not actually judge it to be true. Notably the court actually did judge several of Dominion's claims to be true already in summary judgement (and that's a major reason why they settled).
It's also not totally clear yet that Fox did not have to admit fault of some kind. Loki (talk) 03:30, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Whether or not Fox News is reliable should be determined by conclusions published in reliable sources, not by our own. CNN settled with Nicholas Sandmann,[7] while the SPLC settled with people they accused of Islamophobia. Having to settle libel cases is of course evidence of unreliability, but whether it is conclusion is a determination for which we should look to expert opinion.
So far, the majority of RS I've seen (above) all seem to come to the consensus that FOX not only lied, but knew they were lying...and did it anyway.DN (talk) 04:11, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Also, both The Washington Post and SPLC took steps to correct the record, something I think noteworthy in the reliability context (especially as to the Post, which did so before the suit). If Fox news does nothing more than the statement released in the immediate aftermath of settlement (yet to be determined, obviously), I would say the record remains uncorrected, but reasonable minds may certainly differ. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:43, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Do they say that Fox actually lied or simply that Fox hosted external commentators who they internally doubted (in stronger terms). Given this was a legal case it's always important to be clear about what has actually been shown etc. As an aside, Dershowitz's take on the case (self published on YT) is interesting. On one hand he questions some of the judge's actions. My understanding is he feels the judge was wrong to declare findings of fact (a task that should be left to the jury). However, he also felt that there is likely more to the case that is publicly known. The feeling being that the potential avenues for appeal were strong based on both the preliminary rulings and the feeling that damages on this scale would be very hard to prove (did any states drop vote counting contracts)? He suggests this might mean Fox had more that they wanted to hide but that is purely speculative. Springee (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Springee, I would invite you to read the judge's decision for yourself. And while it is quite true that in most cases, juries decide facts and judges decide law, motions for summary judgment are filed incredibly often in common law jurisdictions. In fact, I'd say it's very difficult to find a civil case without them. Now they are not granted nearly as often as filed, but there was nothing remarkable or unusual about the judge's decision here--which is not to say, of course, that it can't be disagreed with. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 05:02, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
This is certainly some good context to go along with that [8]. Ultimately I don't see this really changes things since we already said Fox talk shows/commentary are not reliable and that was the heart of this issue. Springee (talk) 05:12, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I thought the heart of the issue was that the news reporting, not just the talk shows, was specifically omitting facts and publishing blatant lies without retraction relating to the topics at hand at the pushing of Murdoch and Fox executives? It's funny, I see multiple people pointing that out to you in discussions above. Strange you would still be pushing such an inaccuracy after having been repeatedly corrected. Almost as if you have an immense bias in trying to ensure Fox News isn't considered unreliable, as all of your arguing in this thread seems to indicate. SilverserenC 05:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
First, the accusation is totally uncalled for. As I previously mentioned I don't think I've ever actually added FN as a source (reverting what appears to be an incorrect removal excluded). Second, not publishing or over/under emphasizing aspects of a story is not the same thing as publishing false information. Anyway, since you say I've been corrected, please show the diff and what sources are provided. I do have a bias in this. I have a bias against totally throwing out sources. I think that goes against the spirit and text of WP:V as well as WP:RS. Using Fox with caution (warranted) is not the same as saying we can't use Fox. This is especially problematic in cases where we cover the views of legitimate experts on a topic. Many of the news sources seem to focus on experts who share their perspectives. See my recent Dershowitz hypothetical. Springee (talk) 05:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't think I've ever actually added FN as a source (reverting what appears to be an incorrect removal excluded). I find no difficulty in believing this claim, simply because your style of mainspace editing appears to focus on removing content and reverting edits (I say this not as a criticism—plenty of content needs removing—but merely as a neutral characterization of your style). Your claim is, however, unresponsive to the allegation that you have an immense bias in trying to ensure Fox News isn't considered unreliable, because whether or not you have a bias in favor of Fox News being a reliable source is totally separate from whether or not you personally choose to add Fox News as a source to articles. (But I must note that your personal bias is irrelevant to the question of whether Fox is reliable.)
In response to your request for the diff and what sources are provided that corrected your assertion that we already said Fox talk shows/commentary are not reliable and that was the heart of this issue, I will provide an example. Some days ago you claimed that The problem here was the talk shows, not the news reporting […] the problem element is already viewed as not reliable. David Gerard and Aquillion both responded directly to you, explicitly refuting your claim and providing sources: see here and here. In particular, Aquillion demonstrated that Fox News has blurred the line between news and opinion, which you apparently did not contest. I hope these examples suffice to fulfill your request.
Finally, you also say that I do have a bias in this. I have a bias against totally throwing out sources […] Using Fox with caution (warranted) is not the same as saying we can't use Fox. I think I agree with you on this point, but your position is not in opposition to the users questioning the reliability of Fox as a source. As far as I can tell, no user in these discussions has argued in favor of totally throwing out Fox News. The focus has been almost solely on Fox News's political coverage, and it is my impression that users are on the whole entirely open to Using Fox with caution in that area. Many of them are simply convinced that Fox News is in fact less reliable (in this area) than it has previously been believed to be. Shells-shells (talk) 07:33, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
David Gerard's reply was related to a speculative forward looking question so it doesn't address if our existing rating already covers this issue. Aquillion's reply shows that Fox News listed Bartiromo as a news anchor (and still does [9]) but it does so for her own shows which look like talking head shows rather than news reporting. Would we have considered Mornings with Maria news reporting or commentary? Given it was a talking heads show I think this would fall into the same bucket as Carlson et al which we have already said is generally unreliable. I don't think the it has been shown that the news programs (the shows we would view as news reporting, not commentary) were compromised. Why does this matter? Take the Indictment of Donald Trump article where there are sections talking about legal analysis and commentary. Given Alan Dershowitz's expertise, would it seem reasonable to include his perspective in the section? We have the legal opinions of people picked by other news sources. If someone added Dershowitz via, as an example, this Fox interview [10], should it be retained or not? Many editors already treat Fox News as a remove on site if the topic is even remotely political. Is that approach reasonable in my hypothetical case? What if Dershowitz gave the exact same content to MSNBC, would we then consider it acceptable? wp:RS tells us we really should be considering the claims in question, not just the source. However, over time this has evolved into a game of "do we collectively agree with that source". That doesn't make for better articles in the end. Springee (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
The Dershowitz example is interesting. Just this morning, CNN had a Republican insisting that after slavery, Blacks got full freedom because of the Second Amendment. Craziest concept I've heard on a news program in ages. Of course the anchor heavily challenged the concept. Would have Fox? So yes, it matters on what program Dershowitz is a guest. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:22, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
The thing about Dersh is that, years ago, his opinions on legal questions were respected and often worthy of inclusion. That is very much no longer the case. So the only reason we would need to discuss him is in response to RS reporting of something he did. I would never use the primary source for that anyway. So we lose nothing by not being able to cite Fox for some statement he made on their shows. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:56, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree, Dersh is firmly on the lunatic fringe at this point, not a respected academic and legal thinker. So this example really proves the opposite. Andre🚐 22:24, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Any evidence of this? Where are the scholars who are claiming his legal analysis and understanding of the law is no longer accurate? When did this change occur? Surely this is something we would have covered in is BLP. Springee (talk) 23:02, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
[11] [12] [13] [14] the fall from grace is real. Andre🚐 23:11, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
From the Politico article, "Maybe the question isn’t what happened to Alan Dershowitz.
Maybe it’s what happened to everyone " Two of the article are just op-eds that are mad he was willing to defend Trump. If this is the best you have it's very weak. Springee (talk) 00:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
You say that David Gerard's reply was related to a speculative forward looking question so it doesn't address if our existing rating already covers this issue. This is an inaccurate characterization of David Gerard's comment. David Gerard replied directly to your statement that the problem element is already viewed as not reliable by saying that The issue is precisely that we have the court evidence it was not confined to one element. David Gerard's comment does address if our existing rating already covers this issue; it argues that our existing rating is outdated because newly available evidence demonstrates that the problems are broader than they were once thought to be.
With regard to Bartiromo, you say I don't think [that] it has been shown that the news programs were compromised. Yet you simultaneously say that Fox News listed Bartiromo as a news anchor. What is your criterion for identifying something as a news program? Shells-shells (talk) 18:49, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Fringe fringe and more fringe [15] Andre🚐 23:11, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I think we are missing something here. Yes, we must be very careful about what we print in mainspace. But, we are allowed to make our own judgements on reliability of sources for use in Wikipedia. We don't need a court of law for that. O3000, Ret. (talk) 10:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I don’t disagree… but… I think we need to make those judgements on a more granule level - on a case by case basis. We all know that source X can be unreliable for statement Y, yet reliable for statement Z. We can apply this to Fox.
As a community, we can determine that FN is unreliable for its coverage on Dominion, yet we can also deem it perfectly reliable for its coverage on other stories… a massive warehouse fire in Detroit or a flood in Texas.
We need to resist the temptation to throw the baby out with the bath water. Blueboar (talk) 12:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I think part of the problem is that everything is political these days. A flood or fire is caused by Biden's "woke" policies, or Rothschild space lasers. What came out of the recent case is that Fox management believes keeping their viewers happy is more important than facts. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:08, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
We should be basing such decisions on clear evidence that the source is bad for us. EG for the Daily Mail, it was pushed hard to be classified as unusable, but only got consensus to be that way when multiple documented cases of falsification and made-up information were demonstrated. Here, we can use the case to definitely keep Fox News out of any political story, and strengthens why we don't ever want to see opinions from Tucker and the other talk shows on here, but that doesn't speak to the rest of Fox News in other, more general news departments. Masem (t) 12:17, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I am unconvinced by the distinction. I believe we are creating a distinction here for Fox that we would not for almost any other WP:NEWSORG. If the San Francisco Chronicle was found to have lied knowingly and repeatedly at the direction of the editors about a particular topic, would we really say they're still reliable for reporting on other topics? Or would we just toss the whole source? Loki (talk) 18:23, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
The general news departments of Fox News took their direction from the big bosses in terms of what to cover in terms of their priorities on the 2020 election lies, that is what the Dominion case summary judgment finds. Andre🚐 18:26, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
We should ditch the over-generalizations that are inherent in such listings. Actual reliability is context specific.....expertise and objectivity with respect the the text which cited it. Also remember that in Wikipedia this isn't just about wp:ver. It ripples through into using wp:NPOV to POV an article, to suppress coverage of one side of political issues, in this case by far the largest news organization which covers that "side" North8000 (talk) 12:25, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Problem is, Fox doesn't cover that one side reliably. Fox broadcasts lies -- for years. And is it actually a "news organization" just because it says it is? And don't other news organizations cover both sides? O3000, Ret. (talk) 12:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
No, in the US that era is unfortunately long gone. The major medias are now all at least partially advocates or tilted towards for one side or the other. And they under cover, over cover or fail to cover things and angles accordingly. North8000 (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
That's really not the case, but for the sake of argument, if it were the case, we should deprecate all of the corporate news media in the USA. CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, NPR, ABC, NYT, WSJ .... I'd say they're all reliable except FOX. I hadn't heard that WSJ was on the chopping block. Do you consider WSJ tilted? Andre🚐 19:05, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
With regard to making over-generalizations, in my opinion, We should ditch the over-generalizations that you just now made in your comment. These are very broad, very absolutist assertions that are not particularly helpful to the question at hand. Do you have sources to support your position? Shells-shells (talk) 19:07, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
I know that claim is constantly made by the extreme right. I don't see it. CNN has Republican guests every day. The NYTimes has performed embarrassing investigating of Democrats. Both have had critical articles of the Biden administration. With the wealth of news sources, I cannot accept the idea that only Fox can be used for right-wing (extreme in many cases) angles. Besides, it sounds like you are saying we should start using Fox for politics and science, unlike most everyone here. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:18, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
Replying to the above three post, to clarify, what I advocate is ditching this entire process of overgeneralization regarding media sources. The standard should be expertise and objectivity with respect to the items which cited it Eliminating the largest cable news source would have widespread negative effects. North8000 (talk) 14:49, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Disagree, and that's not a viable approach to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Andre🚐 14:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Agree with North8000 here. Springee (talk) 15:07, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
The problem with the idea of particularized reliability, if I may call it that, is that Wikipedia's current idea of reliability is heavily premised upon the ideas of editorial oversight and fact-checking. While expertise definitely plays a role, institutional norms and culture certainly do as well. I agree any results here will have widespread effects, but what was revealed in the Dominion suit strikes me as fairly unprecedented for a major media organization. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:14, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Agree with North8000, blanket bans of established news organizations are bad. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, and since Fox News is not a real news organization and does not have a reputation for accuracy or fact-checking (our minimum requirements for being a RS), we don't need to worry about its ignominious fate. Only fake news organizations like Fox, OANN, Newsmax, Daily Wire, Breitbart, etc. should be banned. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:22, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
It seems that the only news organizations you think should be banned just happen to all be American media organizations allied with the Republican Party. Are there any organizations that don't fit this description that you think are fake as well? Harry Sibelius (talk) 21:19, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
There have been attempts to start left-wing radio stations. Problem is, no one listens to them. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
And yet they exist. Harry Sibelius (talk) 05:25, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
As no one listens to them, they quickly fail. It appears folks on the left aren't into listening to lies, exaggerations and extremist thought. O3000, Ret. (talk) 13:05, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Harry Sibelius, you need to factor in the huge differences between people on the American political left/liberals and right/conservatives. The highly-respected and politically neutral Pew Research Center studies this stuff. In their coverage of Political Polarization & Media Habits, they found that consistent liberals view a wide variety of sources (and tend to trust all mainstream media, both American and foreign), whereas consistent conservatives tend to focus on few sources, and 47% focus on Fox News, and they distrust all other sources, especially after Trump told them all sources that said anything negative about him, true or not, were "Fake news#Donald Trump's misuse of term" and to not trust fact-checkers.
ONE SOURCE(!!!), with no reputation for accuracy or fact-checking, and a proven history of lying and pushing conspiracy theories, think about that. What type of damage does constantly listening to their deliberate disinformation (not just accidental misinformation) do to the thinking of conservatives? We must follow what RS say about Fox News and downgrade them. Many other sources have been deprecated and blacklisted for far lesser offenses, so be thankful we are currently giving Fox News undeserved favorable and preferential treatment, contrary to our PAG. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:16, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

While it's common the US for people to let everything they say be dominated by which "side" in the political divide they are on, I urge them to rise above that here. This discussion is about potentially deprecating the largest cable news organization. Conversations revolve around "did they every say anything unreliable in the zillions of things that they have produced?" and coupling that with the unspoken "in the US political wars, they are on the team opposite to mine" we need to keep in mind that a common if not the most common use of excluding sources in political areas is in wp:weight battles on political topics and excluding the largest cable news source from that balancing would both do us harm and also further harm rather than improve our bias creditability problem on US political related articles. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:23, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Not all of us are American, and I urge people to wp:agf. We should judge a source solely on whether or not it can be trusted. It should not be some kind of wp:falsebalance where we give equal weight to untrustworthy sources in the name of NPOV. A lie is a lie, no matter how many people believe it, and we should not be including lies. Slatersteven (talk) 14:29, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
North, surely you understand this poll is about whether Fox is a "news organization", "the largest cable news source", usw? SPECIFICO talk 14:39, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
North, lying is the "house style" of the Murdoch stable. Apart from WP:THESUN (already deprecated), The Australian maintains the standard: Graham Readfearn (7 May 2023). "Climate scientists first laughed at a 'bizarre' campaign against the BoM – then came the harassment". Guardian Australia.. Like the fabled scorpion, "because it is in his nature". --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Trusted on what? In wp:weight battles on political topics it about coverage of the various sides and points on a debate. I advocate complete elimination of this whole overgeneralization of sources system, but in the meantime not making the problem worse per the points in my previous post would be good. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:09, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Why does FOX News get a free pass on Politics and Science? Do we do this for all news outlets?

  • Um… responding to whoever created this sub-header… we say to NOT use Fox for politics and science. Which is the opposite of giving them a “free pass”. Perhaps you meant something else? Blueboar (talk) 20:31, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    Could the assertion be that we're giving Fox a free pass by separating its politics and science coverage and assessing it separately from its coverage on other topics? signed, Rosguill talk 20:36, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    But that's not exactly special, and it happens for other outlets, too (e.g. Rolling Stone, Sixth Tone, WP:BUZZFEED vs WP:BUZZFEEDNEWS, CNET, The Points Guy, Newsweek). Distinctions get made when they have value, and my list would be longer when those were made without using separate entries. - GretLomborg (talk) 19:56, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    Many of those are time-based, which is a different situation: we're not trusting editors that are unreliable for one topic to be reliable for other topics if we say that the reliability of a source has declined over time. The remainder have some very concrete reason why their unreliability in one area would not spill over to other areas. Buzzfeed News is a separate organization that just happens to be under the same brand as Buzzfeed's clickbait content, for instance. Loki (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    You claim that we say to NOT use Fox for politics and science. This is not entirely accurate. Fox News is considered marginally reliable with regard to politics and science. It is not considered unreliable. Shells-shells (talk) 20:37, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
    oops...Sorry It looks like my signature didn't take on mobile. I see now that these rules seem to apply to many sources, and for politics it kind of makes sense, but a major news network not being reliable for SCIENCE seems like an extremely egregious line to cross from a standpoint of RELIABILITY.
    What other major networks are considered generally reliable, but not for SCIENCE?
    Not being reliable for reports that involve SCIENCE seems like a huge issue. If it is politicizing something that is supposed to be as fairly mundane as science in order to appeal to an audience that doesn't care about empirical research or WP:VERIFIABILITY, then why would anyone be surprised when they cross the line into plain old journalistic reports? They seem to cater EVERYTHING around a biased political viewpoint. It has been documented that Fox News has been pushing scientific falsehoods for years. See Fox News controversies-Coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic and Guardian-Fox Climate misinformation. The list goes on and on... DN (talk) 02:53, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think it would be fine to use Fox as a source for anything that does not intersect with either politics or science. I doubt they lie about sports results (though even that would not surprise me at this point). Guy (help! - typo?) 17:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    The problem is, what doesn't ever interact with either of those things? We know they're not reliable on business or law news either because they're lying about this case. Sports isn't completely apolitical: what if Colin Kaepernick decides to try to make a comeback? Do you really trust Fox to report on that accurately? Loki (talk) 19:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    For that matter, you can't trust them on anything involving race or LGBTQ; both of which arise often in sports. And they did spend months lying about gas prices. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:05, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    They never lied about gas prices. You keep making that claim and it's wrong each time you do it. Springee (talk) 21:17, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    They never lied on gas prices. It was infographics that at a casual glance biased the data to make it look more severe, but the text data 100% matched up with their source (a reputable one). Tha/ type of problem falls info the "93% of statistics are made up" realm that all sources do even if the simple text numbers are fine. Masem (t) 21:19, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    Is there a link to this infographic and the story about (alleged) lying abut gas prices? Zaathras (talk) 21:22, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    Oddly, no. But I documented here for months. Over 100 times it was updated near the top of the page with a number double the actual average price of gas, higher than any state average, claiming as a source AAA which never had any such numbers. Again, I'm not suggesting using this in the article -- only for our own evaluations. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:40, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    It was discussed at length in the last RFC. Andre🚐 22:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    The text stated "Average Price" and the only number statically displayed was about double. If you were on a non-mobile device, you could see accurate numbers by state by hovering your mouse over a state. But, the one number that you could see without effort was higher than any state. The text stated that the source was AAA, a reliable source; but AAA had no such number anywhere on the displayed url. Interestingly, they did not link the url, so you had to take extra effort to see it was a lie. This was a lie repeated with a different wrong number each day. This number was of enormous importance to tens of millions of Americans and fit FN's claim that inflation was the fault of Biden's "woke" policies. If you believe this wrong number was a technology problem, as Springee repeatedly claimed with no evidence; then their carelessness is beyond anything I would consider RS. And all sources' statistics are NOT grossly incorrect 93% of the time. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:15, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    Again, you were wrong then and wrong now. It was a script error that didn't auto adjust the color scale as gas prices changed. Contrary to your repeatedly incorrect claims, it was not falsely presenting the average price of gas. Springee (talk) 22:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    That is not correct. It clearly advertised a number that was not correctly calculated, and was significantly higher than any gas price in any state. Andre🚐 22:40, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    A.) This has NOTHING to do with the colors. B.) You are just making that up. You have zero evidence of anything about any script. It stated "Average Price" and then had a number which was higher than the average in every single state. And this number was nowhere at the AAA page cited. If this was a "error" reported in a prominent spot for over 100 days; we shouldn't trust them to report the time of day. O3000, Ret. (talk) 22:41, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
    No, you were wrong then and you are still wrong. The issue was a color bar on the side of the screen that didn't scale correctly as the averages changed. It was a simple scripting error that you tried to claim was a big conspiracy to mislead readers. Springee (talk) 22:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
  • I think I can see where you're coming from with this "scripting error" hypothesis. It is, however, a red herring. Earlier, you said that the infographic was not falsely presenting the average price of gas. I believe this is an inaccurate statement, and I will provide a concrete example.
    Here's an archive of Fox News's homepage captured at 00:12 23 August 2022 (GMT). On the right side is the infographic in question. The only value displayed there is $6.309. If you hover your cursor over the map, you will see individual state averages (which appear accurate) and another value will pop up on the low side of the color-bar: $3.963. Now here's a capture of gasprices.aaa.com around midnight, 22 August 2022. The average gas price given there is $3.901; moreover, no state average even approaches the value $6.309. There is an apparent discrepancy here, one that I think justifies to a great extent the claims made by Objective3000. I encourage the reader to open up both these links and compare them. Shells-shells (talk) 00:01, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    This was all discussed last time O3000 complained about this script error. Please note that the plot is a heat map with relative values across different states. Now notice that the key for the heat map is almost all red. That would suggest to anyone who say has experience creating such tables/plots in things like Matlab that the key is not scaling to the updated data in the table. As an example consider this heat map (with gas prices that look very low) [16] Now consider what the key would look like if a script error said the minimum price (on that plot) was $3/gallon. It would show red from end to end. One of the common mistakes amateurs make when doing things like FEA studies is looking at the auto generated color map and ignoring things like the actual strain limits of their material. Yeah, this looks like a scripting error, nothing more. It also never says the price in question is actually an average. O3000 was wrong before and is still wrong now. Springee (talk) 00:18, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    Your point is somewhat undermined by the rather obvious fact that an accurate bar would have had 5.324 at the right hand end, and the red and blue shaded sections of the bar would have been roughly even sizes. Any assumption of good faith on Fox's part in making an error like this is squarely in Mary Poppins territory. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • ARRRRGH:
    I have never said anything about any bar or scaling. Why do you keep claiming this?
    You keep talking about a "scripting error". What are you talking about? I have been in the IT field for well over a half century and lectured on IT in five continents and this is an absurd statement with zero evidence. What is the name of the script? Why do you keep repeating this? What is your evidence? Has FN ever once claimed this -- or are you simply making it up?
    I said absolutely nothing about a conspiracy theory and request that you strike this accusation as per WP:AGF and WP:CASTINGASPERSIONS.
    O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:16, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    Because you keep claiming the number on the bar was meant to be the average gas price. The key doesn't say that and the fact that the key is almost all red vs scaled to show what all the different colors actually mean further supports this. Has FN ever said that $6 number was the average price of gas? Was there ever a time when the average US gas price was that high? Perhaps if you were in some area of data analysis instead of what ever you did you might see this mistake rather than claim Fox is trying to lie about the average price of gas. Springee (talk) 00:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    The number shown appears nowhere. It is an error, but not one of a heat map or a color scale or a scripting error. It's just a wrong value shown and is incorrect, and not excusably so. It happens to be incorrect in a way that creates the idea of $6 gas: when in fact gas never got anywhere close to $6, anywhere at all. Andre🚐 00:24, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    At least you agree it's an error. I hope you can also agree that the bar graph that is meant to be the key to the heat map is screwed up since it doesn't show any of the cooler colors. Perhaps because I have experience creating and working with plots like this I recognize it for what it is, an error. I guess some people might be fooled into thinking it is trying to claim gas is $6/gallon but that is not the same as the claim that Fox spent "months lying about gas prices." That was O3000's claim. Springee (talk) 00:31, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    As I have explained before, I also present daily charts on financial volatility on web sites, including Bloomberg and NASDAQ. I would be extremely embarrassed if I was off by a small fraction and would apologize. This cannot happen with an RS for over 100 days. So, either they lied or are incredibly incompetent in a manner that happens to fit their political narrative. Either is non-RS. In any case, you are making this all up. You have zero evidence that this is some error. Zero. We have had this discussion over and over and you continue to claim something about which you have no knowledge. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:43, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    So you are backing down from the lie claim? Springee (talk) 00:53, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    Stop make false statements. I did no such thing. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    if you were in some area of data analysis instead of what ever you did Actually, I am and upload realized volatility numbers to Bloomberg and NASDAQ after every business day. You need to stop these comments. Tell me, what is anyone reading their site supposed to think this number means? The number is nowhere on the cited page, and the only text says Average. How can you trust this as RS? And, it's even higher than the high in any state. In any case, a number changing every day important to tens of millions of viewers that is always grossly incorrect, rather a lie or mistake, makes is just one example of the fact they are not RS. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:35, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    So you are saying it's not a lie now? You are accepting that is an error in the code now? I mean if you want to say it was a stupid mistake sure, I agree. But you called it a lie. Springee (talk) 00:41, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Can you two stop? You're not convincing each other, and neither of you is going to defeat the other with some rhetorical flourish. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    As you likely know, the purpose of discussion on such pages is often not to convince the other person as it is impossible. It is to present your view, which cannot be done without clarifying your view in the light of false statements about your views or facts by another. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    This back and forth isn't doing that. Please stop it. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:00, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    I absolutely said no such thing. I said even if. It is pointless to discuss this with you. Strike your false statements and stop WP:TEND. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:46, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    Ah, you spotted my point ;-) Yes, the right has made *everything* a political purity test by now. W took action on climate change. Imagine the 2024 Republican candidate running on tackling the biggest single problem facing humanity today. Or even admitting that schools should teach accurate US history, and absolutely not teach creationism. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:22, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    I don't think much has changed. Fox News may be broadly OK for national and local US news stories, but its political coverage has a history of pandering to its audience. This was true even before the Dominion saga unfolded.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:52, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    True, but it actually changed around 2015, according to Network Propaganda. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:01, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

How long

How long are we going to entertain false balance and political axes to grind on this? There should be a critical mass of support to downgrade Fox for politics based on what has been revealed about Fox and Dominion lies. The case was settled yes, but the discovery revealed factual information in RS. This information is damning and adds to the already considerable record on Fox that has been revealed in muliple RFCs, which is conveniently forgotten by a significant contingent along political lines every time it comes up. Well, let's draw a line then. Downgrade to generally unreliable starting in 2020. Andre🚐 23:15, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

If you want to start an RFC to see if said critical mass exists by all means. I dont necessarily disagree with you, but the above section is not going to come to anything. What you need is an RFC and to not have editors responding to any vote they disagree with so that the discussion does not get so unwieldy that no sane person wants to close it with a consensus for anything. nableezy - 23:19, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Not yet another Fox News RfC, please, and this is coming from the person who opened the 2020 one. The current status quo of considering Fox's coverage of politics questionable is fine. We don't need another month of this noticeboard being clogged up and then having to get somebody to spend a lot of their time assessing the consensus. Maybe we can have another RfC in a year or two, but it's too recent since the last one. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
I would normally agree with you on it being too soon, but there seem to be material differences between then and now. And we're clogging up this noticeboard now anyway. nableezy - 23:49, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Too soon? Isn't that a bit like Thoughts and prayers, ie a way to ignore recent events and maintain Status quo? Lord forbid we clog up the notice board with discussion regarding the largest media settlement in history...so far. I honestly empathize with the cynicism, but that doesn't mean I go around telling people to just ignore it and "stay the course" like Exxon at a climate change summit. DN (talk) 03:42, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
If we just had a discussion and it attracted a large amount of participants, and there has been no material change in the circumstances then it is unreasonable to ask people to do it again, thats just editing by attrition. While here I agree there are some material differences, no TOOSOON is not just a way of maintaining the status quo, its also a way to avoid generating needles animosity within what is supposedly a collaborative community. nableezy - 17:11, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
I think I see your point, thanks for the response. DN (talk) 18:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't want to start a new RFC if we are constrained to the usual 4 point format. I'd start an RFC, downgrade to red for politics only, yea or nay. If people don't think that RFC is fair or neutral enough even though I think it's the obvious only meaningful point of contention, then let someone else start it. Currently, the status quo for politics is yellow, which indicates marginal reliability, but not general unreliability. This might, in practice, be kind of the same thing because people only seem to want to add controversial things that end up being unreliable - on the other hand, people who oppose any change to the status quo on Fox, then still act like Fox is already red for politics. Andre🚐 23:23, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Pretty much this. Stop talking here. Wait 3-6 months so the community has some time to recharge their arguing about Fox batteries, then try a highly structured RFC with word and reply limits. At the very least, everyone who's added more than 1000 words to the above discussion should just disengage. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:25, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, the above discussion may seem a pointless waste of time. But, Fox is the mostly viewed news source. As a result, it is constantly brought up as a source on numerous articles, where such lengthy discussions repeatedly take place because no one can point to a decision that it is not RS and just use one of the other innumerable sources, many with Pulitzers and other awards. So, as huge and silly as the discussion above may be – it is nothing compared to the sum of all other discussions on so many article TPs. At some point, reality must prevail to reduce the sum of timesinks.. Isn’t that the point of this page? O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:16, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
It's starting to feel like truth is becoming more of a popularity contest than a measure of rule and policy. If this is the way Wiki is headed, it will fail in it's endeavor. DN (talk) 02:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

RfC: downgrade Fox News for politics?

PASSED
It is clear the overwhelming consensus is to downgrade Fox News to generally unreliable for politics starting in November 2020. It was clear enough that Jayron32 closed the RFC this way 3 days into its run. Not much has changed since then except additional discussion in scope and agreement (with obviously a few more comments in disagreement).
On the secondary questions of whether Fox News could be considered reliable for politics before November 2020, only about 30 users weighed in to explicitly state an opinion one way or the other. To put that in perspective, roughly 110 users participated in this RFC. However, if a user did not explicitly state they were discussing Fox News pre-2020, I did not make that assumption for them. That's mostly an issue with how the RFC was formatted (which was incredibly narrow) rather than the commenters.
Similarly to the pre-2020 issue, only around 35 users explicitly made clear they were also commenting on the question of whether Fox News was reliable for all other topics, so I had to handle that the same way. Both of these questions (whether Fox News was ever reliable for politics pre-2020 and whether Fox News can still be considered reliable for any other topic) should be settled in a separate discussion. Certainly, there is enough doubt raised here that Fox News can't still be considered Generally reliable generally reliable for topics outside of science and politics. This was a tough call, and personally I think I would've prefered tagging Fox News with Stale discussions the stale discussion icon, but that goes against the meaning of the symbol described in WP:RS/P#Legend.
As for whether this consensus should stand only until 2024, that proposal was not seriously considered by all but at most 10 people commenting in this RFC. Therefore, it did not reach anything close to consensus. (non-admin closure) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 19:38, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should we downgrade Fox News to "generally unreliable" for politics starting in November 2020? Binksternet (talk) 19:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Fox poll

  • Yes, deprecate Fox News starting in November 2020 when management redoubled their efforts to portray falsehoods as truth. Binksternet (talk) 19:32, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, based on the new evidence given. Andre🚐 19:34, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 19:43, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes but I would go further back than November 2020. I don't think they've ever been reliable for politics. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:47, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, but back to the beginning, not just 2020. "For politics and science [...] Fox News is considered marginally reliable" needs to be revised downward. In keeping with the very reason Roger Ailes created Fox News, they have never been a RS for politics or science. There should be nothing positive left to say at WP:RSP. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:58, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes - I would actually prefer they be graded as generally unreliable across the board (at least since November 2020), but to my mind, an overreaction here is preferable to the status quo. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose The lawsuit is further evidence that the talk shows are are red sources. It did not provide evidence that Fox's new reporting and provided false information. Additionally, no evidence has been provided that the current use with caution rating is not effective as Fox is already rarely cited. The last RfC was just 6 months back and had significant participation. The current rating is fine especially since case by case should be the standard we use rather than a blanket block which is what is being proposed here. Springee (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    Here's a source about how "serious news anchor" Bret Baier tried to reverse the network's call of Arizona for Biden in the 2020 election, saying it should be "put back in [Trump]'s column", even though it never was to begin with. Thumbs up icon – Muboshgu (talk) 21:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks for including that source. Peer review is present six times in our description of reliable source for a reason. If someone as strong as an on-air anchor at a network insisted that Arizona be "put back" in Trump's column and nevertheless Fox News refused to do it, meaning, the correct outcome was maintained by Fox News, an outcome manifestly contrary to their editorial stance and with a clear potential hit to their bottom line, that means that their peer review system worked. This is what we expect from a reliable source, and therefore the article you linked demonstrates support for an "Oppose" vote. Mathglot (talk) 21:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    Mathglot, that decision to call Arizona for Biden is actually an example of the exception to the rule and seen as a mistake from which they sought to recover by doubling down on election lies. That was seen by Fox News as a mistake and loudly complained about by the rest of Fox News hosts and management. After that, they put all their efforts toward recovering from the damage caused by that correct decision. Viewers immediately fled from Fox News and turned to even more extreme right-wing sites. The internal messaging at Fox revealed in the Dominion case shows they all considered that to be a fateful and very harmful action. It was not a "correction", but seen as an "error" from which they sought to recover by lying even more. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:35, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    I tend to agree. Mathglot's argument seems to cherrypick quite a bit, as you've pointed out from RS that have not recently been successfully sued for defamation damages. Not to mention the upcoming Smartmatic lawsuit, which hasn't even begun. If FOX loses again, would that still not change your view, Mathglot? Any anchor, journalist or news outlet can lie and still call themselves journalists, anchors or news outlets...The question is not whether it is "journalism" or 1st amendment speech... The question here is if it should affect FOXNEWS status as WP:RS, and currently there are about 787.5 million reasons, and counting.DN (talk) 01:09, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    The thing is, they called themselves opinion hosts or personalities. I can excuse an opinion host being wrong or misleading, but when a so-called journalist does it thats more reprehensible. CNN MSNBC and others call their hosts journalists yet fox calls themselves opinion hosts or personalities. We shouldn't take tucker or brett as a reliable source, but many of the fox online stories are fine and are actually written by journalists. PalauanReich🗣️ 01:21, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    A rose by any other name would smell as sweet... DN (talk) 06:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Fox News was the first network to call Florida for George W Bush in 2000, which was of monumental importance given the closeness and eventual recount. Who made the call for Fox? One of Bush's cousins, who was communicating with George and Jeb throughout the day. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    The other networks followed four minutes later. Breaking news frequently contains errors, no matter how professional the network. TFD (talk) 20:33, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    Fox News was the first to call Arizona for Biden. The man responsible was fired, and Maria Bartiromo promoted, when it became clear that the audience would not forgive them for accurate reporting. 2023 Fox is a different beast even from 2014 Fox. Read Network Propaganda. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:52, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    While the Arizona call ended up being right, it was more due to coincidence. The call was obviously premature. Prcc27 (talk) 20:49, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
    That's entirely beside the point. The point is that the Fox decision desk called Arizona early for Biden and Bret Baier said "put it back in Trump's column" Andre🚐 20:52, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
    The decision desk said "Biden will win Arizona" and he did. I see no reason to think it "premature." Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:01, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Weak yes - I HATE all generalizations and am very wary of saying that any media outlet is unreliable for “politics”… that is just too broad a scope for my taste. I would much prefer a narrow it down further to a more defined scope. I would definitely agree that “Fox is not reliable for their coverage of the 2020 US presidential election and it’s aftermath - especially their claims about Dominion.”
  • That said, given that I thought we already said that Fox was unreliable for politics, I can’t object to doing so now. Blueboar (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, provided it is time-limited, ending no later than the end of 2024.- Paying $780 million, or whatever the exact amount is, is not a good sign, to say the least, and a timed downgrade is appropriate. BUT I would oppose an indefinite downgrade as it would amount to disparate treatment. For example, the NYT was never downgraded for their lies here, which are uncorrected to this day.[17] In light of the need to avoid disparate treatment, we need to have a definite ending, and I think a full US election cycle is enough. And has a single academic publication involved in the COVID-19 debate taken notice of the fact that academic input from the People's Republic of China is censored by Xi Jinping?[18] Adoring nanny (talk) 22:23, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
back and forth somebody else thinks is not needed
  • Adoring nanny, you write "uncorrected to this day". That article has two corrections. The New York Times (a real news source) and Fox News (a GOP propaganda source) live in separate universes, and to try to compare them is just plain wrong.
    As far as time-limited goes, that ignores the fact that the problems are not exclusive to the election cycle, but existed before and will continue to exist. Fox will just be more careful not to libel a company, but will continue to tell election lies and any other lies necessary to retain their Trump base. There is a reason why good people left Fox News. Chris Stirewalt, Chris Wallace, Shep Smith, Gretchen Carlson, Julie Roginsky, Carl Cameron, Bill Sammon, Stephen Hayes, and Jonah Goldberg, etc. left for good reason. They were never allowed full freedom to be real journalists, and that will not change. When Fox's own fact checkers get threatened and news hosts get silenced, Fox News fails to meet our minimum requirement for a RS. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:51, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    The big lie in the article was that Mike Nifong had the evidence to take the Duke lacrosse case to the jury. That was a lie when it was written. It remains one today. The most recent archive of the article I am aware of is here[19]. I see a single, minor correction, which has no bearing on the big lie. Other lies followed from the big one. Based on what criterion do you argue that the Fox lie was "propaganda" while the NYT lie was not? Adoring nanny (talk) 18:21, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    Adoring nanny, do you have links to our article content about that aspect of the incident? There should be RS there, and I'd like to read about it.
    Otherwise, comparing Fox News with other RS is a fool's errand, as Fox News does what is right as an exception to the rule, whereas other RS commit errors as an exception to the rule.
    The prudent course with Fox News is the same as when dealing with Trump: "Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward." Fox News comes nowhere close to being a RS. With the knowledge and approval from the top down, their own fact-checkers are threatened and news hosts are blocked from reporting the facts. They fail (that's the news desk) our minimum requirements for all other RS. Why make an exception for Fox? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:48, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    Our article content? Not other than what I gave above. The most thorough source I am aware of on the Duke case is the book Until Proven Innocent [20]. A widely-read blog by one of the authors repeatedly covered the NYT, for example here[21] and here[22]. I can't agree with an attitude that assumes that certain sources are always lying. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:29, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    Yes, our article(s) on the topic, as it's safer than to depend on one source. Of course, if there's nothing else, how strong is the case that the NYT is still lying? Please point me in the right direction. What article(s) do we have? Is it only the [[Duke lacrosse case? Whatever, the point still stands that with Fox, it is the rule, not the exception, that they are generally unreliable, whereas with RS it is the opposite.
    There are certain people and sources that are generally untrustworthy, so much so that one should always be suspicious of them. Trump literally, not hyperbole, can't say 3-5 sentences without there being some form of deception or manipulation. Fact-checkers have measured it and counted how often he engages in deception. It's that bad. Fox News has such a strong agenda that they are in the same boat. They are forced from the top to stick to an agenda, facts be damned. Being around someone like Trump, or listening to a source like Fox, just corrupts one's sense of what is true or false, what is right or wrong. One misses out on so much information that normally lets one know when they are lying that one's whole worldview changes for the worse. One's moral compass gets skewed. It's generally pretty obvious when editors get their info (I would say almost "any" info) from Fox News. They end up defending them and don't understand why other editors still criticize Fox. They don't realize they've been sucked into that fringe bubble. It's better to only stick to RS and never listen to Fox. It's not enough to say one should avoid the talking heads. No, it affects the news side too, much against the wishes of some of the real journalists. That's why so many of them have left. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    OK, time to play "substitute one thing." Here it is: The NYT has such a strong agenda that they are in the same boat. They are forced from the top to stick to that agenda, facts be damned. The agenda: white males bad. So they supported an effort to railroad three white males for a rape that never happened. Plenty of people were sucked into a bubble where the Duke three were "guilty". And the NYT is still "reliable". Adoring nanny (talk) 04:17, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    I would point to the fact that The New York Times afterward reckoned with and recognized failures. Fox has not done so, and their statement in the wake of settlement merely acknowledged that the judge's rulings existed. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:22, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    And has a single academic publication involved in the COVID-19 debate taken notice of the fact that academic input from the People's Republic of China is censored by Xi Jinping? Yes, see Abazi, Vigjilenca (2020), "Truth Distancing? Whistleblowing as Remedy to Censorship during COVID-19" in the European Journal of Risk Regulation—it discusses the censorship of medical whistleblowers. Better examples may exist; I did not look very hard. Interestingly, this tangent is completely irrelevant to the topic of the RfC. Shells-shells (talk) 00:30, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    Glad to hear that at least some journals have noticed. I do believe that we have double standards and that's a problem. I therefore believe this "tangent" is relevant. I would be more comfortable with a Fox downgrade now if there had been a previous NYT downgrade in the wake of the lies I mention above. You are welcome to differ with one or more of these opinions. But the way these RfC's work is that everyone gets to have their say in their own little section. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:47, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    To be honest, I meant to undo my comment for being superfluous, but it edit-conflicted with your reply. I think your initial comment stands perfectly well on its own, and I have not added anything productive to this RfC. Would you mind if I collapsed my reply and the subsequent comment chain? Shells-shells (talk) 00:56, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes - But confining the rationale exclusively to how Fox has misrepresented reality since November 2020 really misses the point. In 2001, after 9/11, I was appalled at how Fox's quest for ratings not only drove its own coverage but how its success at poisonous warmongering drove other major channels to replicate that grotesque and dishonest approach to the news. Here's a good example from the NYT about how Fox affected public opinion, and hence, public policy.[1] Ironically, the Times itself joined the odious ratings contest by regularly printing absolute "weapons of mass destruction" rubbish by Judith Miller on its front page. It pushed MSNBC, for example, to hire Michael Savage while it fired Bill Press and Phil Donahue who had too energetically sought to tell the truth. (Ironically, MSNBC hired Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan to provide "balancing" conservative voices.} Activist (talk) 22:15, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
    So in effect, you're blaming other outlet's poor editorial practices on Fox? I don't think this is exactly the best point. Assuming that Fox did affect other news outlets, shouldn't that be more of a testament to the unreliability of those said sources, since they were so easily driven to replicate Fox new's practices just to pursue ratings? - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 22:44, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, and I would also support downgrading Fox to generally unreliable in general. Last time this came up for an RFC, I believed that there were sufficient problems with Fox's reporting to downgrade them at that time, and I continue to believe that. The fact that there is a smoking gun now doesn't mean that Fox was reliable before.Loki (talk) 23:04, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes - This has a long history, going back to Australia, the UK (where Murdoch’s phone hacking scandal likely cost over $1 billion), and now the US where Roger Aisles, media consultant for US Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was hired as CEO. The house of cards is falling and there is no reason that WP should be under the collapse. There is a wealth of news sources from around the world with Pulitzer prizes and other awards. We have no shortage of sources. How can we use FN as a source and claim reliance on our five pillars? BUT, it must be at least politics, science, economics, race, religion, LGBTQ, most anything else including sports and entertainment as they include race, religion, LGBTQ, etc. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:26, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes No question from this narrow period (2020 onward, politics only) that Fox cannot be anywhere close to reliable from their news desk. I would generally add as a footnote that for most other areas not covered by the RSP entry for Fox, that WP editors tend to look for better sources before resorting to Fox as the source, but that doesn't mean Fox is unusable on WP. --Masem (t) 01:36, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. The problem isn't confined to opinion - Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch admitted under oath that they all promoted false claims about the 2020 election, which he believed was fair. But the difference with Bartiromo is she identifies as a news anchor, as she indicated in her testimony.[2] See also [23]. Even before this, there are scholars who reject the idea that Fox should be considered a news source at all, claiming instead that it should be considered something more akin to propaganda; and in 2021, the same source for the above summary describes it as ...a source of information that embraces a highly partisan perspective with inconsistent commitments to the accuracy of their reporting...[3] A summary of the (still ongoing) Smartmatic lawsuit states that Fox News aired thirteen reports either explicitly stating or implying that Smartmatic played a role in stealing the 2020 presidential election and notes, again, that people making these claims were presented by Fox as news reporters, not as "opinion mouthpieces."[4] It seems difficult to argue that a source whose reporting has the sort of academic coverage described here can reasonably be said to have the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that WP:RS requires. I'd also be strenuously opposed to an expiration date; coverage makes it clear that they've had systematic problems from the start, even if things have gotten worse, and there's no particular reason to think it will ever get better - certainly not within the baffling single-year window that a few people have inexplicably advanced. In the unlikely event that Fox somehow changes its entire direction and business model, we can start a new discussion to re-evaluate it then, but the idea that it could go back to WP:MREL automatically is a total nonstarter. EDIT: I would also support a simple statement that Fox is generally unreliable for all topics. The core problems that these sources reveal show a fundamental issue with how Fox is structured, its core purpose, and its fundamental lack of a commitment to fact-checking or accuracy, which necessarily taints everything they produce. We would not usually make so many carve-outs for a source that had this much coverage indicating unreliability; we'd just declare the whole source unreliable and be done with it. --Aquillion (talk) 02:40, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes with the following Suggested Specifics:
    • Extent: The deprecation shall include strictly political news reporting, but not opinions, interviews, and commentary by Fox employees or guests, for which, however, Fox can be quoted as a matter of record only, e.g. "XYZ said abc on FoxNews yesterday [link to FoxNews]."
    • Begining: The deprecation should start with any and all political reporting made by Fox on the date of the November 20,2020, election, and go forward to the present. Setting a date earlier than that would only result in seriously chaotic conditions; going forward, best leave this as a task of replacing with better sources, as the opportunity arises.
    • Ending: Fox News remains one of the most watched medium in the United States. An indefinite deprecation is a step that probably should be taken with significant and somber consideration, i.e. we should not get carried away too much on the basis of recent news. We should have a time limit, upon whose ending the status of Fox as a deprecated source should either be revoked or indefinitely extended. The year 2024 suggested by Adoring nanny looks about right for this. I suggest revisiting the deprecation, if it presently comes to pass, on Saturday 30, 2024, which is the last day of the month of the next U.S. presidential election.
    -The Gnome (talk) 10:00, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, thoroughly - Fox was started as a political propaganda exercise from the beginning - David Gerard (talk) 14:02, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes They have been unreliable in this regard since well before 2020. Obviously nobody should be using them as a source on the 2020 election, the January 6th insurrection, or voting machines, we know for a fact that the people right at the top of the networks' chain of command willinglt particpated in spreading false information, their willingness to do so suggests they are totally unreliable as a source of information relating to politics. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:59, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes Fabrication is a no no. Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Is this a proposal to deprecate or downgrade to generally unreliable? Those are subtly different as per WP:RSP. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:12, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think "downgrade to generally unreliable" was clearly what was meant, @Binksternet is using the non-jargon common meaning of "deprecate," but perhaps he wouldn't mind updating the section header text to be consistent to avoid confusion. Andre🚐 17:43, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    Agreed with Andre. Loki (talk) 18:27, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
    Yes, "downgrade" is clearer. Binksternet (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. Downgrade to unreliable, but not just for politics and not for a limited time frame. We shouldn't trust a source willing to knowingly lie to the public as being reliable at any point in time on any topic. They have demonstrated a lack of credibility as a source of information.4meter4 (talk) 19:37, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Absolutely. There's nothing new about Fox "News" being propaganda. Hell, that was the entire point of the documentary Outfoxed twenty years ago. And despite the equivocations and hemming and hawing, the idea that there's a distinction between news and opinion shows, or between the TV channel and the website, is and always has been nonsense. The Dominion case proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. The entire operation is rotten to the core, and has been since day one. oknazevad (talk) 19:53, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Honestly, Id go further than this, if you can find something only in Fox then in my view it probably is not true, and almost certainly is misleading. But for the question as posed, yes. nableezy - 20:57, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, deprecate politics coverage after 2020. Also all of its other coverage. And after 2016, or 2012, or 2008, or 2000, or all they back to 1996. Whatever it takes. Fox News was founded as an alternative to perceived liberal bias in media, so it's been tainted from the beginning. Deprecate it all. Woodroar (talk) 21:22, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Downgrade only for politics. Do not deprecate the entire website as they provide reliable sports and weather coverage. However they are unreliable in politics. 69.119.89.11 (talk) 23:11, 22 April 2023 (UTC) struck block evasion ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:41, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
  • No - stick to status quo. There is no good reason to depreciate this source - this RFC is mainly about the settlement story on voting machines. The left wing news sources have had to do settlements over defamation cases recently too such as CNN settle $275 million over racist defamation of Nick Sandmann and Washington Post had to do the same Washington Post settles defamation in 2020. The current status quo already deals with these issues. Aside form the nightly commentators, general news reporting from Fox is reliable - as many mentioned in the last RFC last year RFC: Fox News (news): politics & science. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:06, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes for a downgrade to generally unreliable. It's been clear that Fox News has deceived and lied to its viewers for some time now, and as such should not be considered reliable. JML1148 (Talk | Contribs) 09:46, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • FYI I've listed this at WP:CENT. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:24, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. The Night Watch (talk) 17:32, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes - Whereas Ramos1990 cites defamation settlements regarding the 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation as proof of misconduct at other outlets, Fox News was forced to settle over lies on the fundamentals of the 2020 United States presidential election, a far more significant event, told over a far longer period. Besides the specific falsehoods highlighted in the court case, the editorial policy of focusing on viewership over fact-finding clearly disqualifies Fox News as a reliable source, at least until the Saturday, November 30th, 2024 date suggested by The Gnome. BluePenguin18 🐧 ( 💬 ) 17:47, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, from the very beginning. This isn't a new thing that we're all pretending to be shocked is happening; this is fundamental to the network and has been so well-known for decades that primetime flagship shows in Fox's entertainment division have gone to the well more than once to make fun of of the news division; as Lois Griffin said in 2010, "even true things, once reported by Fox News, become lies". It's time for us to stop pretending. Sceptre (talk) 18:58, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes and backdate so the stuff can be removed by script. It would be highly subjective to try and determine when it started to become unreliable, so best to backdate and remove. scope_creepTalk 20:06, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes also support downgrading Fox to generally unreliable if more evidence, showing cause to do so, is revealed. Why is no one that surprised? Conceivably, we have been worn down over the years to just accept that FOX NEWS knowingly lies at seemingly conspiratorial levels, from the top executives and "hosts", including the Murdochs, to the front-line journalists and anchors, that almost no laymans and few seasoned editors seem to be able tell the difference between. Once caught, FOX quickly just moves the goal post....It's been done so many times it's no wonder even they probably can't tell the difference themselves. Some might also feel the need to argue that they did this at the risk of American democracy, at the very least according to Fred Wertheimer. Reasonable editors are rightfully bothered by these developments. How could we so cynically advocate for "business as usual," much like what FOX NEWS currently seems to be doing? It is likely because we have failed to regularly reexamine the question of where to draw the line, to prevent harm to ourselves and others. Unfortunately, FN will likely continue stonewalling and obfuscating in order to continue to muddy the water between truth and opinion. DN (talk) 23:03, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • No The complaint by Dominion appears to be against Fox News Channel hosts, not Fox News reporting. Statements by talk show hosts are not considered reliable. Also, there is considerable movement of talk show hosts and others between the networks, so they are equally guilty in their talk shows. Jonah Goldberg for example who achieved fame for Liberal Fascism which claims that modern U.S. liberalism has its roots in Italian Fascism, a claimed widely debunked by actual historians, left Fox and now contributes to CNN and MSNBC. He was actually interviewed about the book by CNN host Glenn Beck, who later moved to Fox. Meanwhile, the notorious Fox News host Tucker Carlson previously worked at PBS, MSNBC and CNN. TFD (talk) 20:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    TFD, I absolutely respect your opinions on this, and I also believe this is something where people can, in good faith, come to differing conclusions. That said, I feel like this argument is too clever by half. Which hosts on other networks spread easily debunked lies about Dominion? Could it be that other networks have stronger safeguards in place to prevent occurrences like this? And it is interesting that you choose Jonah Goldberg (for whom I have no great affection), because his own claim was that he left the network because of "propaganda that weaves half-truths into a whole lie." Apologies for the interruption. Have a nice evening. Dumuzid (talk) 21:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    It's quite possible the reason for the confusion is due to the fact that FOX NEWS very likely isn't WP:RELIABLE...it's just a business that calls itself "news"..."Lying in the press is unethical but does not necessarily strip liars of the protections provided by the First Amendment. There is an exception to this: the defamatory lie, one that injures a person or organization’s reputation. That is what got Fox News sued...Anyone can claim to be a journalist, irrespective of their actual function. Any business can claim to be a news organization. Functioning irresponsibly in either role is largely protected by the First Amendment and is therefore optional." - John C. Watson Associate Professor of Journalism, American University. DN (talk) 00:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Dumuzid, we agree, but for TFD's sake I'll point out that while "stronger safeguards" are what keeps normal journalists from making egregious errors, with Fox News there does not exist ANY type of safeguard that would work because this is a "feature" not a "bug" type of thing. It was knowingly and deliberately perpetrated on viewers to keep them from running away to OANN and Newsmax, which they did immediately after Fox called Arizona for Biden. Fox New had always been lying to viewers, but when they for once told the truth, they immediately paid the price, so they returned to doubling down on lying to viewers to get them back.
    When Fox News' own fact checkers sought to correct outright lies, they were threatened and the NEWS division hosts were blocked from touching the matter. This has been going on for years, but the Dominion lawsuit just brought our attention to it. All those private communications revealed that every single person at Fox News, top to bottom, knew Trump's election lies were lies and that Biden won, yet they repeated those lies to audiences to keep them at Fox. That's not an "error" or "bug", that's a malicious "feature" that no "stronger safeguards" can prevent.
    There is a reason so many good journalists have left Fox News. So to sum up the problem, it involves the whole gamut of people at Fox News, including the NEWS division, because it comes from the top. They all know what's true, but deliberately lied to keep their viewers from fleeing. The outcome of the Dominion case just means they'll be more careful not to libel a company but will keep on lying and keeping vital information from their viewers. That's how they have always rolled. That's why Fox News exists. It was created to operate that way by Roger Ailes.
    "The complaint by Dominion appears to be against Fox News Channel hosts, not Fox News reporting." is a red herring. The problem exists, not because of the NEWS hosts, but because everything at Fox News, including the NEWS division, is controlled from the top, and the NEWS division is not supposed to function like an honest news service. It must follow the party line, dictated from the top. So good and honest journalists in the NEWS division are often prevented from covering certain topics and are required to lie to viewers. For many of them that is just too much and they leave. What we're left with is a Fox News that is still defective to its core. It fails the bare minimum (fact-checking itself) we require of all other RS. Why make an exception for Fox News when they do not intend to allow fact-checkers to do their job? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:34, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
    Obviously the other networks' hosts did not lie about Dominion because they tend to lean Democratic, but they also broadcast misinformation such as when Glenn Beck approvingly interviewed Johnah Goldberg about how modern American liberalism derives from fascism. Beck also continually presented the views of the conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen and wrote an introduction to his book about how the New World Order controls the world. While Beck was there, CNN also had as host the nativist Lou Dobbs whose virtually sole topic was "illegal immigration," claiming that Mexicans were responsible for most of America's problems. False reports of the 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation were carried on numerous mainstream news outlets. Similarly, media coverage of the Duke lacrosse players' case was extremely biased against the accused (who were innocent), with CNN talk show host Nancy Grace arguing the prosecution case night after night.
    All major U.S. news media of course misled the public in supporting the false claim that Iraq was behind 9/11 and had weapons of mass destruction and for years that America was winning in Iraq and Afghanistan. The even had their reporters "embedded" with the U.S. Army, which is highly controversial to say the least.
    Major media also misled the public in claiming the COVID-19 lab leak theory was a "conspiracy theory" although it is now considered a possibility, even if remote, and the FBI now says with low confidence that is what happened. CNN also had on night after night the now disgraced ex-governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, presenting him as being on top of the covid pandemic even while he was covering up nursing home deaths. His brother, who was a talk show host at CNN, was helping Andrew defend himself in the media against sexual misconduct allegations.
    The reason journalists can so easily move between Fox and other cable news is that they are similar. They both have relatively reliable news programming telling people what actually happened and relatively unreliable talk show hosts telling them what they want to hear.
    I disagree that Fox News should be considered unreliable because its talk show hosts are. As I mentioned, they often go back and forth between networks and are not considered reliable sources anyway. TFD (talk) 01:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    journalists can so easily move between Fox and other cable news Um...what? SPECIFICO talk 20:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    I am happy to leave it there and agree to disagree. Have a good week. Dumuzid (talk) 01:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    TFD, you have a point, but I think you're missing the broader picture. You're right that there is a difference between individual journalists and the network as a whole. For example, Judith Miller committed extreme journalistic malpractice, but that doesn't mean the New York Times as a whole is disreputable, same with Dan Rather and CBS News. However, when the network as a whole is staffed with so many of those disreputable figures, particularly at the top, then it can only be expected that what is pumped out through the TV outfit bleeds over into other divisions, which is what is proved both with this lawsuit and the decades of grounded and fundamental criticism. Curbon7 (talk) 02:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    The smoking gun is the messages talking about how they could not afford to offend their viewers. Rather than following the facts, they told the audience what it demanded to hear, even knowing that it was not just a lie, but a ridiculous lie. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:00, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
    Sorry, but that's simply not true. The lawsuit was against Fox News Channel and Fox Corp, not Carlson or Hannity or Dobbs. If Fox could have argued opinion, they would have had a solid defense under Sullivan. This was Fox News Channel, as a body corporate, placing retention of viewers above factual accuracy, even knowing that this might result in a successful lawsuit against them. They valued the loss of market share to Newsmax, above the knowledge, recorded in the documents released in the case, that what they were promoting as "fact" across both news and commentary shows, was not just false, but ridiculous: unserious claims advanced by unserious people, who were nonetheless highlighted in news shows as if they were "just asking questions". And actually, wee've known since the Seth Rich case that Fox reporters (not talking heads) have fabricated quotes and pushed known lies (e.g. https://www.wbur.org/npr/540783715/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-supporter-created-fake-news-story). Fix was created by Roger Ailes, Richard Nixon's media advisor, to ensure that no Republican ever had to resign again. This is Fox working as designed. It's the antidote to Woodward and Bernstein. By design. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:58, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Lab leak related
  • Conspiracy theories do not get "upgraded" to "possibility" because believers exist, although it's a common argument to deny conflicting knowledge and confuses fringe with "unpopular". Behind conspiracy theories there always are "possibilities" and cherry picked data (they tend to misrepresent, irrationally connect dots, focus on blame, feature straw men and sham "investigations" and sometimes even use a redefined vocabulatory designed to dismiss reality and actual knowledge discovery methods). Then if it's a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method is needed to validate it, not mediatic noise with a tradition of arguments. The leak claim can be best described as a minor hypothesis as well as a group of conspiracy theories, especially considering the grandiose allegations that must be entertained about everone who must somehow have been involved in concealing claimed "evidence", scheming maliciously, then because of the scientific implausibilities. For instance, historical leaks have not resulted in pandemics, claims of engineering failed to provide plausible evidence, there is nothing suspicious with spillover and human adaptation and that was actually predictable. Research for mitigation and vaccine development are not nefarious and have happened with previous concerning Coronaviruses (SARS-1, MERS). Standard lab practice involves documentation and tracing such that in case of an incident it is more easily contained than when discovered already running in populations (in addition to in-lab physical barriers). Virology and epidemiology have mundane "default" explanations that have not been plausibly challenged by more sensational ones: viral transmission and adaptation have been studied before, working with evidence-based knowledge and there even was progress to understand the origins of SARS-CoV-2. As with many things, we may never know every detail and this never automatically validates outlandish claims. —PaleoNeonate – 06:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • (followup) Then there is post-truthism, where a certain number of people can be made to believe and promote falsehoods, exploiting ignorance, using massive propaganda, as well as policy-enforced "reality" (i.e. geocentrism in the 1600s, pseudoscientific Lysenkoism, Intelligent Design's wedge strategy). The latter cannot change facts, only perceptions and reactions and be used to suppress, oppress or exploit. It constantly needs to preach and whine about "truth" because it lacks the reality framework to support the "reality" it wants to dictate. To come back on topic, among other falsehoods Fox News massively promoted the Big Lie (that is not just a baseless description), despite its dangerous consequences, with the defamation lawsuit being another reminder that also presented evidence of it. The "because they lean democratic" above suggests the false equivalence ("they're all equally bad and post-truth") and whataboutism (pointing at a failure elsewhere to forget the real problem at hand). Journalistic integrity is a thing. Better media have reported about the claims and conspiracy theories, who promoted them and why they were dismissed, without needing to constantly push uncertainty propaganda to suggest that it may have some legitimacy. Fox already has a bad RSN record that the RSP entry attempted to summarize, not for nothing. —PaleoNeonate – 06:15, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes Fox News has been spewing misinformation for decades about politics. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:26, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes for anything relating to American elections and specifically how they are carried out, retain status quo for everything else - the lawsuit highlights that Fox is unreliable for claims relating to US elections, with them basically admitting that they let stories air in regards to the election narrative, even when many knew that the stories are dubious at best. However, I don't see that this is enough to affect talk show hosts (who are already essentially deprecated and who this lawsuit primarily targeted), and the website (which in spite of the claims made by @Oknazevad, there is an unequivocally an undeniable difference in, especially in regards to non-political stories). I especially don't see how we should be deprecating non-political stories, which are fairly mundane and more comparable to the rest of the MSM. The lawsuit further indicates primarily that the talk show hosts are unreliable and as for the website, indicates that anything relating to 2020 US elections is probably fabricated, and that material relating to future elections in the United States at least on the federal level probably shouldn't be trusted either. However, most other political stories more mundane in comparison; just exaggerated and sensationalistic, and probably should just retain a yellow for being analyzed on a case-by-case basis, sort of similar to the WP:DAILYBEAST. I also agree with @Adoring nanny's statement that while yes, nearly a billion dollars is a big deal, using defamation lawsuits (or in this case, attempted lawsuits) to deprecate sources, is opening the floodgates for a massive, unwieldy, and generally bad precedent (for example, the multi-hundred million dollar lawsuits that CNN and the WaPo endured and settled with relating to the Covington kids). If Fox news is to be entirely deprecated for politics, then deprecate until Decemeber 1, 2024, after the month where the US election occurs, for the aforementioned reasons. - Knightoftheswords281 (Talk-Contribs) 22:22, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. If Fox didn't treat "news" and "opinion" differently, as became clear as a result of the lawsuit, then why should we? Downgrade politics and science coverage to 3/red/unreliable, downgrade all other news coverage to 2/yellow/caution, and downgrade their talk shows to 4/darkred/deprecated. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 23:55, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment - We are rather quickly nearing WP:SNOW. For better or worse, the RfC topics were narrowed to politics, media, the arts, and architecture -- not including science, for example, or race and LGBTQ. One might argue that they are part of politics, but what isn't these days and that's not how the topics would be selected. Not suggesting they be added now as, perhaps, it makes sense to proceed piecemeal. Just means that we won't bring in folks interested in climate change, anti-vaccination, Gensex, CRT, {are Jewish space lasers included) and such that in normal days wouldn't be considered politics. Not making a suggestion -- just a comment. O3000, Ret. (talk) 01:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Just wanted to briefly chime in to say that I agree with both your general analysis and sense of where we are headed, but when we're talking about such a major source (the most-watched cable news network in the United States by far), I think we really should err on the side of caution by leaving things open for a long time and inviting as much comment as possible. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 01:30, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think the fairest way to resolve this is to let this RFC tick for at least about another week, and then if it's still in WP:SNOW territory close it. Then open a second RFC for Fox News's political coverage prior to 2020 and a separate third one for Fox News's coverage prior to 2020 in general.
    I see there's a fairly large number of people here clearly saying that they want to go further than just a downgrade from 2020 onward, definitely more than people who explicitly oppose such a thing, but there's also enough people being vague about it that I don't think we'd be able to clearly say there's a consensus right now. Loki (talk) 04:31, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes Fox News repeatedly spreads lies and then claims that it's not actually news to get out of liability for that. It's news only in branding. The recent court judgement and settlement show clearly that they are a propaganda network and not reliable for politics. Galobtter (talk) 02:43, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. And not just since 2020 (they've been unreliable for some time, at least 2016 if not earlier), and not just for politics (also science/medicine, e.g. climate change and covid). We should indicate, at a minimum, that "additional considerations apply" to citing Fox for any contentious topic, in addition to them being unreliable for politics. As others have said above, we don't give any other source anywhere near as much leeway as a few people keep trying to give Fox: if any other source was this intentionally inaccurate, we would consider that source suspect ("additional considerations apply", if not "unreliable"), not go "well, they lie about politics ... and science ... and medicine ... but there's no reason to think they're anything other than reliable for most stuff!" We should acknowledge they're unreliable for politics, and science / medicine, and say caution or "additional considerations" apply to citing them in general, if not simply saying they're generally unreliable. -sche (talk) 03:15, 24 April 2023 (UTC) slightly expanded -sche (talk) 01:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes The revelations that emerged in the Dominion lawsuit make it very clear that lying Fox propagandists are in charge there, and that top management sides with lies instead of facts, and defers to the demands of the propagandists instead of siding with the occasional Fox journalist who attempts to tell the truth. A network that says that Maria Bartiromo is somehow a legitimate journalist can be trusted with nothing. If Fox News sometimes tells the truth, then certainly we can easily find a far better source to cite for verification. Their pernicious lies, after all, far exceed any genuine journalistic scoops. Cullen328 (talk) 03:23, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • To the question as asked, yes, obviously: it is a matter of public record. For AMPOL in general, without a terminus ante, also yes: there will always be stronger sources for anything factual they reported. Folly Mox (talk) 04:26, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes deprecate Fox News since it was founded and not just for politics. Lightoil (talk) 04:44, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • No, clearly biased political poll. One major incident makes it suspect, sure, and if it happens again then a better argument could be made. But the settlement was made with the intention of owning up to a rather large mistake.--Ortizesp (talk) 06:40, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Ortizesp, this is not about one major incident, but it was this incident that once again confirmed what we have complained about for years. They lie and do not fact-check. As far as this incident, it wasn't a "mistake". It was deliberate and prolonged. It revealed that when fact-checking goes against the party line, the bosses threaten the fact-checkers and block the NEWS division from accurately reporting the matter. The "mistake" (in the eyes of Fox News hosts, management, and viewers) was when they called Arizona for Biden. They did the right thing for a change, and it was shocking to the world. Normal people were amazed that for once Fox News was honest. To Fox News viewers and Trump sycophants, it was a grave "mistake" and they immediately left for OANN and Newsmax, as they weren't interested in facts, but only wanted to hear positive things about Trump. Fox News noticed they were hemorrhaging viewers and immediately went into damage control mode by threatening their own fact-checkers, blocking accurate NEWS coverage, and doubling down on election lies, while continuing to tell all the other lies they have always told viewers and still tell them. Fox News is not a real "news" channel. It's a propaganda channel with a huge agenda, and that's the way Roger Ailes intended it to function. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:47, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Of course we should. Duh.—S Marshall T/C 07:15, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, absolutely - it's a no-brainer. Roger Ailes created FN as a propaganda outlet, after all. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:13, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, same logic as WP:THESUN, and the same treatment should apply. Indeed all Murdoch outlets should have a cautionary rubric because economy with the truth is his business strategy. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:21, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes (for all information, as they politicize medicine, climate change, Science in general, its hard to think of something they do not politicise), they have admitted lying, they played all kinds of games before finally settling. They no longer have a reputation for fact-checking, they have a reputation for telling lies. Note as well we have been discussing this for years, with a gradual downgrading of Fox, this is not some Knee jerk reaction based upon recent news, rather recent news has confirmed what many of us have argued for years, Fox News tells lies. Slatersteven (talk) 09:25, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Question: Much of this RFC is focused on Fox’s coverage of the 2020 presidential election and their claims about Dominion. And I agree that Fox’s coverage of that was extremely unreliable. But… does this unreliability translate to their coverage of all political topics? For example, did they show the same bias and engage in the same false reporting when covering the various 2020 House, Senate or Gubernatorial races? I guess what I am asking is this: Are we making a broad generalization based upon one (admittedly egregious) specific case? Are there other instances? Blueboar (talk) 11:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Blueboar, just to answer your question for myself, I guess I am a bit skeptical of sources in general. For every mistake we know about, I assume there are several we don't know about or at least near misses. This was, as you say, an egregious case about basically their single biggest story over a prolonged period of time. Now, it's entirely possible (perhaps even probable) that their other reporting is sourced better than to a time traveler who speaks to the wind--but how can we know for sure? If they were willing to engage in this conduct over this big a story, what lines can we safely say they would draw? That's why I come down as I do, but as I like to say, reasonable minds may certainly differ and I am happy to go with the wisdom of consensus. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:19, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think most definitions of reliability consider some element of consistency. If a source sometimes deliberately misinforms, I think it is reasonable to conclude that it is unreliable. CT55555(talk) 23:31, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. To answer User:Blueboar, this WP:RSNP note lists 23 discussions, not counting the RFCs. A random clickthrough of recent RSN archives shows numerous unlinked threads about something shady Fox News has done, often through opinion makers. In this clear instance, case discovery has demonstrated beyond a doubt that even at the very highest levels of management, even THEY don't believe what they've been broadcasting. I urged deprecation last RFC. BusterD (talk) 12:24, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Well… good news for those who hate Fox because of Tucker… he just got fired. So… perhaps they are turning over a new leaf? Whatever is decided in this RFC, we will need to re-assess in a year to see if they have improved. Blueboar (talk) 16:41, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Yes, re-assessment can always happen later. Right now they are in CYA mode, but will that mean they also will ignore what their viewers want and tell the truth, regardless of those viewers' wishes? I doubt it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:51, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    Yes. If they make some effort at correcting the record, I would certainly think a reassessment is in order. Unexplained personnel moves are less persuasive to me, but I am just one old guy. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
    I don't hate Fox. I hate the way they are poisoning political discourse in the US. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. If nothing else WP:RS says that reliable sources should have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Regardless of the exact reliability of Fox News, they don't have a reputation for fact checking or accuracy at this point. Hut 8.5 17:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes on what I dare say are obvious grounds. Moreover, the idea of a time limit on the downgrading does not make sense to me. (It would be, I believe, unprecedented.) We revisit and re-discuss these matters when circumstances warrant, not when we guesstimate that they might. XOR'easter (talk) 17:42, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, downgrade. Would support downgrading prior to November 2020, as well. Useight (talk) 16:48, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, downgrade to generally unreliable for post-2020 coverage. In December 2020, the CEO of Fox News told anchor Eric Shawn that the fact-checking "has to stop now" because it is "bad for business". Very notably, Eric Shawn is part of Fox's "hard news" lineup (and quite a decent guy), not the host of an opinion show. An outlet's reliability depends on its editorial independence and editorial thoroughness, and that comes straight from the top. An outlet where executives interfere with newsroom activities because of political concerns is not reliable on politics. Aquillion provides more excellent sources, and XOR'easter is correct to point out that a time-limit would be unprecedented and pointless. DFlhb (talk) 18:57, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. We have bent over backwards to be fair to our conservative editors, but this is not a remotely close call. The facts clearly show that executives put viewer retention above even the most basic journalistic standards. Fact-checkers were shouted down. The man who accurately reported the Arizona call, was sacked. The shark was jumped. And all of this is documented as far back as 2015 by Benkler et. al. in Network Propaganda. We know they lied, we know why they did it, we know that the incentives in conservative media lead to asymmetric polarisation and a departure from the fact-checking dynamic. To assume good faith of Fox in any topic related to partisan politics, is to interpret neutrality as the average between reliable sources and propagandists. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:40, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes with great obviousness. Fox News has pushed a false and deceptive narrative since at least 2016, and doubled-down in 2020, it should not be used as a citation in any article. Zaathras (talk) 21:24, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • The Fox News business model has always been, first and foremost, giving a particular part of the population exactly what they want to see and hear. Reinforce existing fears, values, biases, mistrust, and understandings; filter current events through pre-existing ideologies. Secondarily, it is a tool for political influence. These two purposes are explicit, not just inferred, and have an inevitable effect on one another, resulting in a product which takes the genre conventions of news but has never quite tethered itself to traditional journalistic standards. By any analysis or measure of accuracy, bias, editorial oversight, fact-checking, or external influence, it falls short of what we typically expect from a reliable source. It's been that way for years. Since the mid-2010s, it's increasingly also moved from serving a traditional conservative majority to providing a gateway to the extreme right. Disinformation and conspiracy theories begin in more obscure extreme publications/platforms and find their way to a larger audience thanks to shows on Fox News.
    With the Dominion suit, we see an intersection of all of this: fringe conspiracies, external influence, a desire to give people whatever they want even when the hosts know it's untrue, buy-in from those in charge, reprimands for fact-checkers and anyone who challenges profitable misinformation, and a total disregard for journalistic standards. It's not new, but it's been laid bare.
    For absolutely any other source, it would've been considered generally unreliable or deprecated years ago. The only reason it hasn't been is because it's extremely popular, and we're all afraid that the huge number of people who watch Fox News will add Wikipedia to the list of "liberal media" -- that catch-all group of publications which include liberal perspectives alongside any outfit that doesn't prioritize catering to or cultivating conservative beliefs. At the end of the day, we don't want to alienate anyone; we want people who hear news about election fraud from Fox, etc. to come to Wikipedia and read our articles about election fraud. Maybe even follow the links and read some material they wouldn't otherwise consume. Fox's only value to this project is the extreme loyalty and trust so many people put in it. It is not valuable as a source of information on politics or just about anything, but like a Boob Tube Demagogue, we can bet that it won't hesitate to stoke outrage among its viewers with a bunch of "Wokepedia" stories. That's the main reason I've opposed multiple past efforts to downgrade Fox -- it's just a cost-benefit analysis predicated on the fact that we already don't really permit Fox to be used for politics for all of the reasons above. So we bend over backwards to draw lines: ok it's useful sometimes but not others; ok its newsroom is fine but the talk shows are bad; ok it's fine for some subjects but "no consensus" about science or politics; ok it's lousy for politics recently but "no consensus" before 2020... we don't do this for anything else.
    At this point, come on ... the jig is up. It's time to just accept that we're not being true to WP:RS to continue to entertain the idea that Fox is ever reliable for anything remotely connected to politics. If someone's going to put us with the "liberal media" category, so be it. We can join science and universities in Rush Limbaugh's "corners of deceit". We do reflect the scientific consensus on climate change, we don't say the 2020 US election was stolen, we don't say that vaccines cause autism, we don't treat QAnon as credible, and we shouldn't continue pretending that Fox News has any redeeming value to a project concerned with summarizing the best sources about a subject. Fox News is, fundamentally, never going to be the best source about a subject for a project that upholds values like WP:NPOV, WP:FRINGE, and WP:RS. Support. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, and deprecate for all information - "generally unreliable" doesn't go far enough for a source which has been proven to have deliberately published information which they knew to be false, motivated by a political agenda. We normally deprecate propaganda outlets, and I don't see any reason why Fox News should be an exception. It doesn't matter if it was a handful of reporters and commentators nor that those individuals may have been terminated - part of being considered a reliable source is maintaining editorial oversight to prevent the publication of outright falsehoods, but Fox News failed to do so either because they do not have proper editorial control or, worse, because their editorial board supports this agenda. Continuing to consider it reliable in any way would bring Wikipedia into disrepute - if Wikipedia continues to rely on sources which are widely known to have deliberately published misinformation, how can anyone continue to rely on Wikipedia as a source of truthful information? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 22:56, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, we were long past the point of this being a necessary change. There was already evidence of this unreliability in reporting long before this particular court case put Fox's purposefully inaccurate reporting on the national stage. And with the evidence from the court case, I do feel like it calls into question much of their other reporting as well, such as on scientific topics. SilverserenC 22:59, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, even before that court case it was pretty obvious they were ready to make up news out of thin air. I don't believe firing Tucker will change much to that, especially since he wasn't the only one involved. Chaotic Enby (talk) 23:42, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Support. They lied. On purpose. That's called Disinformation. Why is this even a question??? Who thought unclosing was a good idea??? My first thought is that after we're done with this, we should go to a broader discussion about deprecating them for everything per Snowmanonahoe. casualdejekyll 23:55, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • NO. It has been asserted, over and over again, that Fox News intentionally lied about the election, and everyone mutters and nods their heads. The evidence offered has been entirety incoherent. What exactly is the claim that they knew to be false information, but promoted anyway? I often see it claimed that it was Tucker Carlson's assertion, in private, that Sydney Powell's claims were false. But he also asserted that they were false publicly, on the Fox News channel. There is no contradiction there. When Carlson said that Heinrich should be fired for saying that "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised", this does not contradict his attacks on Powell, which were never private or hidden from the public in any way. The two claims are not equal, and can only be connected tendentiously. If A alleges that B specifically did not steal the election, and C alleges that the election was not stolen at all, and A attacks C for saying so, that does not mean that A has contradicted themselves in any way whatsoever.Harry Sibelius (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
    Seriously? They reprimanded a journalist for saying that Biden won. They sacked Chris Stirewalt for accurately calling Arizona for Biden. We have emails from executives promising to stop the fact-checkers from contradicting the Big Lie, because factual information about the election was losing them viewers to NewsMax and OANN. Fox paid out more than three quarters of a billion dollars because it was lying, and it knew it was lying, to appease an audience that wanted to hear lies. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:57, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Fox effectively admitted they broadcast false information about Dominion voting machines. Andre🚐 01:23, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
    Harry Sibelius, a court of law already found that Fox lied about the election, in some cases by endorsing, agreeing with, or repeating fatuous arguments from guests. While I will be the first to say that courts do not determine reality, and we are free to disagree with their conclusions, in this case I, personally, find the reasoning persuasive. You can read the decision here. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 01:37, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
    I've seen claims that Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News, but for the duration of these omnishambles, why hasn't Tucker Carlson or FOX NEWS corroborated any imputation that would signify W hornswaggled H into absquatulating from A to trick T into some obvious palaver? DN (talk) 03:09, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Downgrade for politics, but no change for other articles. Fox Business articles, and content focusing on sports and entertainment should be okay. I would recommend only using Fox News to cite American-conservative opinions, given compliance with WP:FRINGE. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 01:29, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Is there a single topic of importance in America today that hasn't been made political by the right drawing battle lines in its culture insurgency? Guy (help! - typo?) 08:58, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    A few… but those were made political by the left drawing battle lines in its cultural insurgency! Blueboar (talk) 21:25, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
    Met Gala? InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:02, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, and deprecate for all information. False information is false information, and it's not a question of left vs right: I would've said the same if, say, NPR fabricated stories. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 06:01, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Unreliable for factual statements about politics (but reliable for its own political opinions and assertions if attributed) - This is tabloid level news and pandering to the gullible audience. That said, with removing these sites like Fox and Daily Mail we may run into a problem with bias, as they are the main representatives of right wing views, so in my opinion Fox News (and Daily Mail) should be unequivocally considered attributable. Maybe it doesn't need to be said, as I think we know policy allows attribution of unreliable sources, but it may ever be appropriate to insert a "but Fox News claimed such and such about the topic", if only to guard against completely silencing opposing points of view, wrong, false, or not. —DIYeditor (talk) 06:06, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Unreliable for anything - preferably deprecation noting in particular User:Rhododendrites comments on the 25th. However, per SPECIFICO'S argument below is convincing so I would support using allegations and opinions if there are sufficient reliable sources to establish weight.I would exempt attributed statements of opinion or allegations when attributed. I don't want to completely silence per the post above and others. Doug Weller talk 10:04, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Deprecate Any noteworthy content will have other sources, so there's no benefit trying to craft convoluled exceptions in which we would use Fox News any more than we would devise exceptions for any other self-published unverified narratives -- bloggers, youtube, tik-tokkers, et. al. @Doug Weller: I would not except attributed Fox News opinion. Such content would need secondary RS reporting to establish NPOV weight. Finally let's face the fact that, in American Politics at least, we have editors who are closeted Fox followers. They get their content ideas from Fox News, then google to find (cherrypick) a source for UNDUE or demonstrably false article content. So we need to draw a bright line. Any valid article content will have ample non-Fox publications that discuss it. Fox as a primary source for its own opinions is Pandora's box. SPECIFICO talk 13:23, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    @SPECIFICO That's a reasonable point about wanting secondary sources. Doug Weller talk 13:43, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    @SPECIFICO: and @Doug Weller: I definitely see what you mean. From what I have seen on RSN (admittedly limited in scope) I think it would be unusual to completely prohibit attribution of opinion to a source. We allow religious and fringe sources and such that are found unreliable here to be used as sources for their own views, without demanding (to my understanding) that these views have received coverage in reliable sources. Still, you are correct, there does need to be some means to clamp down on editors shoehorning bogus, irrelevant or non-noteworthy views into articles. I don't have a ready answer and I don't have enough experience with contentious topics and reliable sources to say what the answer might be. Here is the relevant passage from WP:DUE:
    Reliability should be judged relative to the statement being sourced. Any source can be a reliable source for its own opinion. However, not all sources have relevant opinions. Please do not give the opinions of sources undue weight. Making a statement about a fact other than someone's opinion requires a higher degree of reliability. The more extraordinary the fact, the higher the degree of reliability needed.
    I think given Fox's broad reach, its opinions would tend to have some weight, as attributed opinions. —DIYeditor (talk) 15:11, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Why would any particular Fox statement be noteworthy, even for the Fox News page, if that statement has not been discussed by some second party? Excluding Fox's attributed statements ABOUTSELF for its own page. SPECIFICO talk 17:18, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Noteworthy because a huge number of people would have been exposed to the opinion? —DIYeditor (talk) 17:40, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Well[24] O3000, Ret. (talk) 17:53, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Ok I guess I see how this would work. It still does seem like a step further than is usually taken for questionable sources. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:55, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Excellent point re opinion - in fact the reason we are here is because we now know that Fox "opinion" is simple propaganda, published regardless of truth. To cover each new outrage in the manner "Fox said outrageous thing, source, Fox saying outrageous thing" is a clear failure of NPOV (to say nothing of being recentism). Guy (help! - typo?) 13:02, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • No/Bad RFC - The issues and lawsuit have been about Fox News's opinion talk show hosts, which are already deprecated and treated separately in WP:RSP from their news operation. There's been a persistent tendency to sloppily ignore that distinction in these discussions, criticize the opinion hosts, then advocate action against the news organization. It's like arguing for the deprecation of the New York Times by using a bunch of stuff about the New York Post (or just having the New York Post on your mind). I don't think any action should be taken against the news operation unless the RFC makes it clear that the opinion talk shows are off-topic for the discussion. Furthermore, Fox paid a big settlement and fired Tucker Carlson, which is a positive sign that they could be addressing the issues that are there. - GretLomborg (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    This comment is not accurate. This RFC is indeed scoped to news content. 2600:4041:524F:C600:BC9F:9325:534:D344 (talk) 14:41, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    As previously stated several times, the issues absolutely are not limited merely to Fox opinion hosts, and instead include both statements from hosts that Fox themselves categorized as "news", and pressure on hosts that everyone unambiguously categories as "news" to lie outright. Loki (talk) 19:39, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, it "fails to adhere to basic journalistic practices". Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:23, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. Downgrade is warranted due to the well-documented, pervasive integrity and accuracy issues with this source. VQuakr (talk) 17:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • No For all of the other reasons given plus: Would be a massive overgeneralizatoin and this would have a particularly high impact. Reliabiltiy is specific to the situaiotn and measured by objectivity and experetise with respect to the item which cited it. Also removing the largest cable TV news source would ripple through far beyond wp:ver into distortions in coverage under wp:weight. Such an impactful decision would need more visibility and participation than a thread in a noticeboard. North8000 (talk) 18:44, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    more visibility It is listed at WP:CENT presently. I do think this should remain open rather than be snow closed, and in that time anyone is welcome to post neutral pointers to this thread elsewhere.
    distortions in coverage under wp:weight - WP:WEIGHT is predicated on using reliable sources (making sure that the perspectives therein are reflected appropriately and proportionately). If we allow unreliable sources into articles, then yes, it would have a significant impact on how we understand WP:WEIGHT. If your meaning is simply that "there are perspectives on Fox that we should be including", could you provide some examples? I recall several arguments in e.g. the Daily Mail RfC and New York Post RfC about specific types of coverage they could be used for (sports, for example), which we would lose if deprecating them, although in this case the proposal is very narrow (politics). What kind of political stories/perspectives are uniquely provided by Fox and not present in any better source such that we should be relying on Fox directly? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    @Rhododendrites: I tend to not even attempt the goal of non-bias and am more concerned about the lower bar of missing information due to bias. And in the US these is much that is undercovered by the media depending on which "side" of the US political divide they are on. (and nearly all are on 1 side in this respect). Maybe as a quick example, the hate crime related discussions on the Tenessee mass shooting, or what the specific charges were that the Tenessee legislators were expelled for. These are just off the cuff....I did not analyzee because I don't inhabit those types of articles. North8000 (talk) 18:14, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
    While I agree there is probably some tendency toward selective reporting, possibly due to editorial bias or a desire to control the narrative, or simply due to monetary motivations on the part of news venues (pandering to the audience), that doesn't change the fact that the NY Post, Daily Mail and Fox News are abysmally low brow shitshows. They appeal to the lowest common denominator at best and deal in sensationalism, blatant falsehoods and conspiracy theories. If no reputable large audience right-leaning sources come forward, for whatever reason, that is not the problem of Wikipedia. Or rather, it is a problem for Wikipedia, but it is not a problem for Wikipedia to solve. We can't use garbage sources. —DIYeditor (talk) 18:28, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
    Here's The New Republic and NBC reporting on the hate crime related discussions on the Tenessee mass shooting. Here's CBS and NPR reporting on what the specific charges were that the Tenessee legislators were expelled for—namely, disorderly behavior. CBS also provided direct links to the three motions to expel, in PDF form. These articles, too, were found just off the cuff; I expect I could find more if I took more time. I am not immediately seeing that there is much that is undercovered. Shells-shells (talk) 18:48, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. The Fox News empire is an egregious fabricator of mistruths and pernicious denier of truths. They peddle lies and conspiracy theories, and spread disinformation and doubt that erode foundations of civic trust (America), scientific integrity (Vaccines), and planetary habitability (climate catastrophe). To continue to rely on them as if they have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" is dangerous and utter nonsense. We are better, and our readers deserve better. Ocaasi t | c 19:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Bad RfC. I don't see it in Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/All. I don't see an editing dispute re "The Wikipedia article(s) in which the source is being used" for what is apparently the issue (an electoral fraud accusation), and if there is such an issue then don't use it in whatever the relevant articles are, rather than propose a ban on "politics", which might be broadly construed. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:44, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    It looks like the rfc tag was never put back after the closure was undone. I've put it back now. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:51, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes – Fox News has been shown to value ratings more than fact-checking, especially in political topics. At this time, I only support deprecating Fox News as a WP:RS for politics (broadly construed) and would like to see this revisited in four years unless they are further deprecated. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 21:13, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Of course Wikipedia is a reality-based project and no diversion based on a false equivalence, claiming that all sources are bad, will change the fact that some sources are particularly renown for deception. Wikipedia doesn't only care about verification but also about the reliability of the sources used. It makes a distinction between verification and reliability and its neutral point of view policy is about accurately representing the analysis of reliable sources, not "neutral" editor synthesis using any source to present a false balance to "let the reader decide" with confused uncertainty propaganda. Fact checkers evaluate the quality and fairness of the analysis done by sources. Unreliable opinion shows mixed in with news and trying to confuse the two is an indication of an intent to mislead. Further evidence is how some people who were expected to subscribe to journalistic ethics have also been implicated in populist post-truth narratives promotion (in "news" reporting) and how representatives acknowledged that to appeal to certain demographics and compete with some extremist sources designed for radicalization, the factual accuracy and fairness were sacrificed. This has not only occurred in relation to Trumpism but also for climate change denial purposes, the obstruction of public health management and to promote the persecution of minorities. Fox News "analysis" is understood to be unfair. I would also support deprecation if asked. —PaleoNeonate – 06:00, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes - I would not limit the downgrade, either in time or by subject matter. The summary judgment has only provided documentation for the way that Fox News already was operating, and there is no justification for concluding that something happened after the election that somehow changed the way they do everything. In the past I have argued that downgrading should apply only to politics and science, but I now believe that was the wrong conclusion. Rather, Fox News is willing to be unreliable on any subject where there is a political connection, and it finds a political connection to everything. The mere fact that its reporting happens to be accurate some of the time does not mean it is reliable; rather, that is the opposite of reliability. John M Baker (talk) 00:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment Are there any actual Fox News articles which discussed and stated that the Dominion Voting falsehoods which the on air personalities promoted were rooted in truth? If not, why is black listing Fox News now necessary? Thriley (talk) 01:12, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes As a right-winger myself, I find that I can no longer defend their reporting. I think Fox News has been unreliable for politics since Gamergate or when the current culture war started. Scorpions13256 (talk) 02:04, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think of it more as a culture insurgency, since it is being waged only by one side, regressives who are unable to understand that acknowledging the existence of a thing they hate is not the same as causing the thing they hate to exist. They seem to believe that nobody grew up gay when surrounded by exclusively heteronormative influences. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:05, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Consistency with the Daily Mail decision - I disagreed with the wholescale filtering of particular sources that are ultimately legitimate news organisations and not actual propaganda outlets like Global Times or Russia Today, if ones with low reliability. However, as a source, it is not clear to me why there is any distinction between Fox News and the Daily Mail, as both are essentially tabloid news sources. If anything, the Daily Mail operates within a frame work that holds it to a higher standard than the one that Fox News operates within. There being no consistency between the propaganda outlets of dictatorships (PressTV, RT etc.), which are not mostly not filtered, British tabloid sources (The Sun, The Daily Mail), which are mostly filtered, and US tabloid sources (Fox News), some of which are not filtered, gives the impression of a biased and inconsistent approach. FOARP (talk) 11:13, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
    somewhat ironic, since the entire point here is that we now know Fox is exactly what you describe: an actual propaganda outlet. They are judging the news they publish by its acceptability to an audience that would rather hear lies than have its biases challenged. Discovery was not a good thing for Fox. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:07, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
    The kind of discovery that can only happen in a country where a defamation lawsuit is brought against a media outlet, which was my point.
    The bad reputation British tabloids have comes in large part from the number of times they have been sued successfully for defamation in UK courts where, for better or worse, it is easier to sue for defamation than in the US. They have also been the subject of proceedings before the regulator, something that doesn’t even really exist in the US. For the longest time editors here used that as evidence that British tabloid outlets were worse than US ones when in fact they were no worse and probably better simply from fear of being sued.
    But I do disagree on one point: even the Dominion case has not exposed Fox as a propaganda outlet on a par with Global Times or China Daily (which remain unfiltered last I checked, though that was some time ago). Hu Xi Jin’s paper literally has carried out its own astro-turfing operation at Hu’s instruction (see the Richard Burger controversy) and China Daily was infamous during my time in China for basically inventing stories out of whole cloth (not, as at Fox, getting on guests who they knew were crazy).
    I no longer bother to ask that the decision as to what sources be used (where they are at least media outlets) be left ultimately up to editors, just that these sources (UK tabloids, US tabloids, dictatorship propaganda outlets) be treated consistently. FOARP (talk) 05:14, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
    English defamation law changed after the passage of the Defamation Act 2013 (full disclosure: I know Simon Singh and several of the people who were involved in getting that law passed). I have also been sued under US defamation laws, by malicious quack Gary Null. Luckily he sueed in New York, which has a robust anti-SLAPP law. I would never defend the use of tabloids as a source. But I would also never defend use of right-partisan media as a source, after having read Network Propaganda. Normally I would qualify that with "for anything contentious", but the partisan media have done an excellent job of removing nuance from everything and turning practically everything into a contentious partisan topic. Look at the attempts to smear the victims of the Texas shooting this week, or the defences of the white man who killed a Black man having an obvious mental health issue in New York today. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:56, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. Situations can change and consensus can change. What we know now, as a result of the revelations from the suit, is that there has been a longstanding corporate effort to present falsehoods as news, even when known to be false, and that this infected the news content, and not just the commentary. There simply is not going to be any sort of information in recent news that we would need to source to Fox, because it can be sourced to other, reality-based, news sources. There is no longer any possible justification for treating Fox as an encyclopedically reliable source. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:28, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes and we should also blacklist the Fox News website and consider everything from them unreliable Qwv (talk) 00:40, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, they lied. 1.136.110.231 (talk) 10:32, 29 April 2023 (UTC).
  • Yes, but for everything. Other than the ample evidence already provided on their inaccuracy and promulgation of fallacies and lies on anything related to science, politics and society; it's now been established beyond doubt that they do not maintain adequeate separation between "facts" and "opinions", that the latter is utterly biased and fallacious, and that the network's management prefers it so for the sake of profit. Depracate the website and TV channels for all subjects, except for content that originates in self-managing local affiliates. François Robere (talk) 13:16, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes – absolutely deprecate for scientific claims per its history of defying scientific consensus (at least they purportedly don't deny climate change anymore). I'm OK with just labeling it unreliable for politics and other things. ~~lol1VNIO (I made a mistake? talk to me) 17:10, 29 April 2023 (UTC); edited 15:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
    Wow, I knew that Fox had a reputation for altering images. What I didn't know was that such instances can come up randomly from reading stuff online (see also Politico). Trust me, this was purely incidental. It makes no sense to just deprecate images, so now I'm for full deprecation. ~~lol1VNIO (I made a mistake? talk to me) 15:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes and deprecate as an explicit propaganda mill, per my arguments to that effect at every previous RFC about this I have attended. I would be happy to see this website finally and completely blacklisted for all topics. They make no effort beyond the superficial to be a reliable source of information and our treatment of them should reflect that. --Licks-rocks (talk) 19:19, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, per all of the "yes" arguments above. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:44, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes: Good grief -- when numerous major figures at the network all the way up to Murdoch himself admitted in legal depositions to tailoring -- or wishing they had -- their news and statements to what they thought their audience wanted to hear? That's not a "news" source. That's an entertainment channel. Nor am I impressed by Fox News being the most watched cable channel as a reason to demur. So frigging what? We've deprecated many large media outlets as unreliable, and their viewership/readership has nothing to do with it. It comes down to whether we can trust that the outlet is reporting the truth. There are reams of testimony under oath to tell us that we cannot trust Fox News to do so. Done deal. Ravenswing 10:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
    Agree. Daily Mail is popular and unreliable. CT55555(talk) 23:25, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. Seems to have a history of not fact checking, including sharing misinformation presented as news, on the news channel. I don't overlook this just because it's a chat/opinion now, as it's on the news channel. Settling claims of untruthfulness helps me with this conclusion. CT55555(talk) 22:24, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Comment - I am still on the fence about this, but from my limited knowledge, most of the misinformation about politics seems to come from talk shows, which we have repeatedly found by consensus to be generally unreliable. The Dominion suit largely appears to be related to the actions of talk show hosts like Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, etc., who it now appears intentionally allowed guests to spread falsehoods about the 2020 election to appease their audience despite knowing they were false. I may have missed it, but I haven't seen that Fox has a tendency to spread misinformation via news articles. Therefore, I don't find the unreliability of talk shows (which are opinion shows, not news) to be a convincing argument for why we should downgrade the entire network. I also don't find many of the arguments above convincing; many seem to range from throwing out the baby with the bathwater, to ad hominem attacks, to simple dislike of Fox News, which I have my fair share of. That being, said, I just pulled up the |politics page, an the top three headlines are "President Biden slams 'MAGA Republicans' as the 'real problem' at DNC reception", Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signs bill banning transgender treatments for minors", and "McCarthy takes Congress back to school on AI". Sure enough, all of these stories have been reported by countless other news outlets, many of which are uncontroversial. While there are certainly lots of opinion pieces and what appear to be segments from talk shows (I haven't checked) listed on the front of the politics page, I haven't seen that Fox News has a tendency to inaccurately report on politics in their news coverage (again, I am not referring to talk shows, opinion shows/articles, etc) anymore than any other networks. Sure, they choose what they report on, but all networks do that. Bias is not the same as factual inaccuracy. Therefore, I can't yet say I support deprecating Fox News politics coverage post-2020 or before or declaring it generally unreliable. I think this is something we need to evaluate on a case-by-case basis. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:41, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
    I think based on what you've said here, you've clearly missed the several previous comments which mention findings that show that it was not just the opinion hosts at issue, for two reasons:
    1. Maria Bartiromo was internally classified by Fox as news and she openly spread election misinformation. Or in other words, by Fox's own classification they were spreading misinfo on their news side. This either means that Fox's own internal distinction between news and opinion is useless (so isolating the issue to "opinion" doesn't help them) or, even worse, that an actual news anchor was spreading conspiracy theories on air.
    2. Probably more importantly, anchors everyone agrees are news were pressured to lie by higher ups after the Arizona call. Once the misinformation is coming directly from the editors, that itself should be enough to declare a source non-reliable. Part of our definition of a reliable source is that it has an editorial process to separate truth from falsehood. If their editorial process is separating truth from falsehood and publishing the falsehoods, that's the exact opposite of a reliable source.
    Loki (talk) 05:18, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    By opinion, I was referring to the all of the cable talk shows, including Bartiromo. All of these shows are "opinion" shows, regardless of what they call themselves. I thought this has been established in multiple past discussions about this network and others. I don't think Fox calls any of their shows "opinion shows". But these are different than news articles published online, regardless of whether or not Fox considers them to be the same. There is a huge difference between publishing news articles about an event, and talking about an event and then giving your opinion about it (or having someone else do it on your show). We don't normally cite recordings of talk shows on Wikipedia; instead we usually rely on news articles. With regards to the Arizona call (and I admit I don't know everything), I'm not surprised that management encouraged them to retract their call; it clearly would have appeased their viewers. But there also seems to have been a controversy about whether or not Fox called Arizona too soon (see this article), as a significant share of the vote was not yet in, and all other networks called Arizona much later. Could this have possibly played a role in efforts to retract? In other words, was the view amongst management something like "We better reverse our call, because if we are wrong, our viewers will never forgive us", "Biden probably won Arizona, but our viewers are not giving up hope that Trump may still somehow pull it off when more votes come in", etc.? In other words, Fox may have actually called Arizona too soon, something that other networks have done before, probably most famously in 2000. With regards to news, I still have yet to see that Fox has a long history of publishing false news stories. Sure, the vast majority of the news stories they publish end up being largely useless and lost to history. That is true of most news articles. But I haven't seen a convincing argument for why we should not allow Fox articles about politics that can be easily verified to be cited on Wikipedia. Some have mentioned that anything reliable covered by Fox News is likely to be covered by other reliable networks. That is true, and we could just cite other networks, but I don't find that to be a convincing argument for why we shouldn't be allowed to cite them if they are reliable. That being said, I will be changing my !vote to "Support for all talk shows only, oppose for all political coverage", as the current consensus from past discussions seems to have largely focused shows like Carlson, Hannity, Ingraham, etc. I would extend this definition to talk shows that the network classifies as news, including Bartiromo. Bneu2013 (talk) 07:11, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    Bartiromo and Baier were both classified as news anchors. Regardless, talk shows are already unreliable. This is about the news website Andre🚐 22:48, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
    Isn't that what I already said? By "talk show" I was referring to all opinion shows, regardless of whether or not the network themselves classifies them as "news". But none of them are news. Bneu2013 (talk) 01:10, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose for all political coverage, support for all television programs - see my comments above. Bneu2013 (talk) 07:19, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    • Note - I have changed my !vote to "support for all television programs" because I was unaware that a consensus had not been reached on whether or not all television programs were unreliable. Bneu2013 (talk) 01:17, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes per WP:DAILYMAIL. Fox News has been generally unreliable since well before 2020, and I wouldn't trust them to tell me what day of the week it was. Miniapolis 01:16, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, but I would go further and depreciate Fox News for science and politics back to its inception. It's wiki page is just a long list of Fox News's lies, misinformation, and racist rhetoric which would make the KKK blush. Fox News should join both the Daily Stormer and Daily Mail and be banned from being used as a source on wikipedia. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 23:10, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes and 'generally unreliable' is a significant understatement. Just check out their today's featured news: https://www.foxnews.com/media/middle-school-student-allegedly-sent-home-refusing-change-shirt-said-only-two-genders. What did we learn from this? Absolutely nothing. It's a rinse and repeat right-wing propaganda launder machine that brings nothing of value and nothing new. When it does bring actual news, it's never something that more reliable sources do not already exist for. They do not adhere to any journalistic standards. –Vipz (talk) 02:14, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, IMO the summary judgement above add to concerns with the previous failed fact-checks and issues in previous RfCs. Therefore, from my perspective the fundamental requirement of WP:RS, which is a reputation of fact-checking and accuracy, is obviously questionable for politics starting from November 2020, justifying a downgrade to generally unreliable (for this specific timeframe). VickKiang (talk) 06:21, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, according to the leader of https://unfoxmycablebox.com/ , Fox is just hate, extremism, and lies. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:51, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, Fox has been consistently unreliable for a very long time, and I'd say they were designed that way from the beginning especially with regard to politics. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:37, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes It has been indicated that Fox News moved from bias to fabrication around that time. Pear 2.0 (say hi!) 13:58, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, and back to the beginning, not just from 2020. Valjean puts it well above: "Comparing Fox News with other RS is a fool's errand, as Fox News does what is right as an exception to the rule, whereas other RS commit errors as an exception to the rule." For example: Fox scrambled to recover from calling Arizona for Biden, and courted forgiveness from MAGA by firing the man responsible. Bishonen | tålk 14:21, 1 May 2023 (UTC).
  • Yes: Fox news has been a much ridiculed joke of a news source for the best part of a decade now. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No: One story should not depreciate an entire network. Additionally the majority of complaints were against opinon television hosts not reporters. Grahaml35 (talk) 17:05, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    The documents revealed in the lawsuit showed that despite their public claims, Fox News basically treated "journalists" and "opinion hosts" basically the same internally. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 04:09, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. I'd argue that it should go back further than this, as well, though I'm not sure exactly where the line should be drawn. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 18:12, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes downgrade politics for a limited time period, per Adoring nanny and The Gnome. In light of Tucker Carlson's firing, I have reason to believe that this is one indication that the young guard at Fox might be trying to ease the network back into its 'fair and balanced' heritage. Allowing Fox some rope would also go a long way in forestalling criticism of WP being biased toward one viewpoint. StonyBrook babble 20:24, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    Are you aware that Fair and Balanced was recited nightly to whet viewers' appetites for a smorgasboard of conspiracy theories and undocumented assertions on Fox TV? SPECIFICO talk 20:39, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    Citing a paywalled source to back up a contentious assertion in an attempt to badger my !vote only corroborates my concerns about this space being perceived as sliding too far in one direction. StonyBrook babble 21:04, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    To save you further insinuating bad faith from other editors, here's a clear copy - David Gerard (talk) 21:13, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks for that David. No mention of conspiracy theories, only that Fair and Balanced was a marketing ploy concocted to convince viewers that Fox offered an alternative to the perceived liberal biases of other media. While this may indeed be the case, there is no disputing the fact that real attempts were made to present both sides of an issue, in programs such as Hannity & Colmes. Your article makes the point that the phrase was dropped in 2017 (after they started falling in with Trump) and I am saying that recent events might be the catalyst for them to bring this idea back.  StonyBrook babble 21:41, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    Putting it another way, "Fair and Balanced" was not an "idea". It was a marketing slogan, no more an idea than "Think different" or "America Runs on Dunkin." SPECIFICO talk 23:06, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
    Fun fact: Fox sued Al Franken over his use of the term "fair and balanced" in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. They lost. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:51, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, and make it a blanket ban rather than from 2020 onwards. This article has existed since 2006 and outlines enough reasons for an indefinite ban. Anarchyte (talk) 13:50, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Reading through the discussion, I'm uneasy about this RfC. It seems at least some editors are treating this as an opportunity to expunge a disfavoured source rather than soberly analysing its accuracy. Of course, the mere fact that some have supported downgrading Fox for bad reasons doesn't magically imply Fox ought not to be downgraded, but it makes me worried enough to leave this comment. – Teratix ₵ 14:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Not sufficiently reliable in general, and now abundantly clear that it NEVER has been. In a past Fox-RFC I was willing to set aside a serious pile of red-flags and !voted argued to accept Fox because (1) it was big and (2) I was bending over backwards to give it the benefit of the doubt for source diversity. However we are long past the point where we have to acknowledge that Fox News was never a reliable news source and never had any commitment to any standard of journalism or integrity. Like Russia Today, any valid news they carry is just incidental filler to pad out the unreliable propaganda and tabloid content. Trying to salvage "good enough" content from a fundamentally unreliable source is a fool's game. Part of the reason we need to acknowledge the non-reliability of Fox News is to acknowledge that any oppinion or so-called story or so-called scandal warrants absolutely zero weight for mention in an encyclopedia just because it was published at Fox. If a story or scandal or viewpoint is meaningful enough to mention in an encyclopedia, then surely it can be found somewhere else. Alsee (talk) 08:21, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes for all topic areas and including pre-2020 coverage, per my comments in previous RfCs. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 21:25, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, support blanket deprecation of Fox News - Pursuit of the truth should be paramount and should not bow to crocodile tears from those who profit from farming outrage from the right. 2020 showed a more aggressive and reckless approach to fabrication, not a "[move] from bias to fabrication". ― "Ghost of Dan Gurney" (talk)  00:04, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No. For web content and coverage outside talk shows, deprecation for a single story spread by talk show hosts (is ridiculous. Maybe if there was more evidence that the other Fox outlets spread malinformation? But until then, whatever the talk show hosts say bears no relevance to such an RfC . Also, per North8000. -- Mebigrouxboy (talk)
  • Yes, strong yes. After the Dominion Voting lawsuit was settled, it's abundantly clear they make up news to push an agenda. Tucker Carlson leaving is likely related to it as well. Oaktree b (talk) 13:55, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Reluctant Yes Fox is pretty much the only major news network that is not editorially left of center and their willingness to cover stories often ignored by the other networks has been an important contribution to providing some level of journalistic balance. Unfortunately, it is simply impossible to ignore the overwhelming body of evidence that Fox deliberately promoted kooky and seditious conspiracy theories, that they knew as a matter of fact, to be false, in order to curry favor with the far right and prop up their ratings. That is conduct that I consider absolutely antithetical to what is expected of a reliable source. I do not regard this as a final and immutable judgement and may be open to reconsideration somewhere down the road. But recovering from this kind of reputational damage will take time. And for clarity, I am talking years. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:21, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
    It depends how you define center, and indeed news network. NPR is neutral, but looks far left by comparison with Fox and its ilk - as indeed does Attila the Hun. The center of US politics, right now, outflanks Reagan on the right. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:01, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Not sure this discussion is still open or not (no light blue background, so it appears still open); not sure the 3-day "rush closing" has been extended or not either, but I am presenting my point of view on this matter. Not even sure I am posting under the correct section (or subsection) or not. If this is the wrong subsection, to an admin, please feel free to relocate my post.
    First, I am an independent, so I come here with no agenda other than an independent's agenda, if there's such a thing; not a liberal nor a conservative either. What I am is a believer that Fox News shouldn't be "nailed" forever (or even temporarily) for one single HUGE error, even if that error was intentional. Fox News has provided an alternative point of view for many decades and, in any society, it's important to get both --and all-- sides of a story --any story-- and let the individual decide, rather than allowing the media decide for us, no matter if that media is right or wrong or if it's left or right wing. I compare this approach to 2 siblings before their father telling their side of an event (such as a fight) between the 2 siblings where the father wasn't a witness. Now, consider if the father wanted to listen to one of the 2 sides only because in the past the other side told a BIG lie. It wouldn't be a fair process, IMO; the father should always allow himself to listen two both sides, regardless of past history, and then decide based on having listened to both sides. Likewise, IMO, with Fox News. Yes, this viewpoint will probably generate a lot of responses, and I welcome them all, as I hope any responders did welcome mine herein as well, but I doubt I will respond back to any because, again, it's my opinion and, also IMO, that my opinion it's representative of the opinion of many others, just as each opinion herein is, I believe, also representative of many others. Mercy11 (talk) 01:11, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
    Comment "Yes, this viewpoint will probably generate a lot of responses, and I welcome them all, as I hope any responders did welcome mine herein as well, but I doubt I will respond back to any because, again, it's my opinion and, also IMO, that my opinion it's representative of the opinion of many others."...Huh?...Might I suggest WP:AGF for some clarification? DN (talk) 04:10, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No I have no love for fox news, but Bneu2013 is exactly right. There are obvious editorial problems with fox's TV programming, including so-called news anchors, but the accusation that this also applies to reporting on foxnews.com (the source we typically draw from) is made without real evidence and constitutes guilt by association. Has Maria Bartiromo been cited as a reliable source on wikipedia even once? Show me an example of a fox article printing an outright lie or a higher-up pressuring a print journalist to fudge the facts and I might change my mind. Reliable sources do not need to be neutral, and it is impossible to achieve NPOV without the inclusion of right-of-center sources. We would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. —Rutebega (talk) 15:42, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
    1. We actually do have evidence that the website is bad.
    2. "Guilt by association" applies when there's no obvious hierarchical structure or directed information flow between entities, which isn't the case here.
    3. In the spirit of WP:BURDEN, it is incumbent on those arguing for inclusion to demonstrate Fox News's reliability, not the other way around.
    4. In the spirit of WP:5P1, we should be using only the best available sources, not arguing on why some source "isn't bad enough"; if we're having that discussion, then it probably is.
    François Robere (talk) 16:32, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
    I appreciate all the work you put into collecting documentation on this. I would conclude this is evidence of an institutional problem and this is completely unacceptable. The anonymous statements here are also suggestive of an environment hostile to factual reporting. Nevertheless, both the untruths I've cited were ultimately corrected, and nearly all foxnews.com articles I've found are basically factual, if extremely slanted. In my opinion, these examples support the status quo: Fox is marginally reliable when it comes to politics and science, and should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Clearly they have a spotty record, but even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors, and I would set the bar a little higher for downgrading, which would effectively ban the source from all BLP articles (or those related to politics and science, anyway). Again, I think this would have a deleterious effect on NPOV across the project.
    Also, it's barely relevant, but that isn't even remotely what WP:BURDEN is about, and it's a classic misapplication of the concept. It doesn't matter how many true things fox has reported, it's impossible to "prove" they're always reliable (which isn't even what I'm arguing). —Rutebega (talk) 21:32, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
    There's an enormous gulf difference between other news groups that have instances of occasional shoddy reporting and missed fact-checking episodes, and Fox News which was just exposed in litigation for releasing disinformation (not mis-, dis-) to sway public opinion away from one party and towards another in regards to election results. That is unforgiveable, and renders them completely unusable for sourcing in this project. Zaathras (talk) 21:40, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
    My point was really to invoke the principle of NEWSORG, not to draw a false equivalence between Fox and any other news source. The status quo already reflects the fact that Fox is not as trustworthy as other sources, and it shouldn't be used without some discussion. Immediately below WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS you can see that their talk shows are already considered unreliable, so the lawsuit really doesn't change a thing from where I'm standing (I suppose we could formally deprecate the talk shows, which I frankly think would be warranted, but that's not what this RfC is about). The last RfC on this was less than a year ago, and any new information that I'm aware of just isn't dispositive when it comes to the sources we actually use on wikipedia. —Rutebega (talk) 22:16, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
  • You say "it is impossible to achieve NPOV without the inclusion of right-of-center sources"...No one here is saying FOX NEWS will no longer be "included", only that it's status should be changed to more accurately reflect it's current level of reliability. Further more, no one here is saying right-of-center sources can no longer being included. You are using Straw man arguments. DN (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
    Sorry DN, I didn't intend to put words in anyone's mouth. I was only pointing out one of the encyclopedic benefits of using fox as a source, in line with what North8000 said earlier. I have to challenge your assertion though, because it seems that there are at least a handful of editors including the person whose reply preceded yours who would like to stop using Fox, and might object to being called straw men. If you strongly disagree with that perspective, you'll have to take it up with them. —Rutebega (talk) 22:00, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
    What those FEW editors are talking about is WP:DEPS...What you seem to be claiming here is that these editors are calling for Wikipedia:Spam blacklist of not just FOXNEWS, but "for right-of-center sources" in general... BTW..."Deprecation is not a blanket retroactive "ban" on using the source in absolutely every situation, contrary to what has been reported in media headlines. In particular, reliability always depends on the specific content being cited, and all sources are reliable in at least some circumstances and unreliable in at least some others. Citations to deprecated sources should not be removed indiscriminately, and each case should be reviewed separately. While some deprecated sources have been completely eliminated as references, others have not." Now, one might reasonably argue that FOXNEWS's settlement in the dominion lawsuit was indicative of possible Defamation, seeing as FOX NEWS decided to pay one of the largest financial settlements in a defamation case, in history to avoid further discovery, but we still have the upcoming Smartmatic lawsuit for which FOX NEWS will again be facing claims of Defamation. If they decide to settle yet again, will you still continue to defend their status as "reliable" on Wiki?...Cheers. DN (talk) 00:19, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
    You are using Straw man arguments....What you seem to be claiming here is that...
    Come on now. —Rutebega (talk) 02:03, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
    The difference being I gave you an opportunity to correct me instead of making a declarative statement. Obviously your grasp of logical fallacies is limited. Best of luck with that. I wish you would have at least bothered to answer my question and avoided the old "I'm rubber you're glue" defense. In the spirit of WP:CIVIL and on the advice of another editor I struck a portion of my previous comment. Apologies. DN (talk) 02:42, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
  • No per Bneu2013. I'm not a political person at all, but my impression is that the Fox network talk shows are biased in favor of Trump/republicans, but are generally reliable on news reporting, and CNN talk shows are more biased towards democrats, but generally reliable for news reporting. All sources have their imperfections, and if you go looking for them, you will surely find them. If we are eliminating sources in this manner, we soon won't have any left. I think this RfC is *probably* really more a demonstration of the strong political bias of our editors toward a democratic political stance against the republican beliefs of Fox news. I think there isn't anything wrong with Fox news talk shows having their political views any more than CNN has theirs as long as they are both reporting the news accurately enough. We have to remember that we are the assholes who decided primary sourcing wasn't good enough, and straight up facts can't come from the original source, but they have to be "interpreted" through secondary sources. Well, there you go. Secondary sources don't always agree what the "interpretation" of the facts are. If we are eliminating sources in this manner, we soon won't have any left. (talk) 19:20, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
    If we are eliminating sources in this manner, we soon won't have any left. I think this RfC is *probably* really more a demonstration of the strong political bias of our editors toward a democratic political stance against the republican beliefs of Fox news. What evidence leads you to believe we are "eliminating" FOXNEWS? How is it you can claim to read the minds of all the editors here in order to make that determination while also assuming good faith? I would hope that most editors here would feel the need to have a disscusion about any so called "reliable" source, right or left leaning, in the event of evidence such as this coming out. Perhaps all news sources will eventually be downgraded, and if so, maybe it is for the best. DN (talk) 23:43, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
    I feel the need to chime in and clarify my comments once again. My objections to banning the use of Fox News for all political coverage stems from the difference between talk shows and news reporting. While they are usually conflated, talk shows are not the same thing as news articles or nightly news broadcasts. Talk shows are largely opinion shows. While they often talk about happenings in the news, they don't exactly "report" it. Instead, they talk about the news and then give their opinions about it and/or bring someone else on to give their opinion about it. This is what has gotten Fox in trouble here; in this case, they have had people on their shows who have said false things about the 2020 election. This is not the same thing as reporting false things about the 2020 election. This brings me back to my main point that cable talk shows are not the same as news reporting. Next to none of the controversies that people have cited to justify their opinions that Fox News should be deprecated involve news stories that the network has published; they overwhelmingly name Carlson, Hannity, Bartiromo, Ingraham, Perino, Baier, and a bunch of other people I can't name. Is Fox's news reporting flawless? Of course not. But we wouldn't deprecate, say, a major newspaper because they published opinion articles that contained falsehoods. My point is, we need to distinguish between outright reporting falsehoods as truth and/or lying and allowing someone to say something on air that is false without taking a stance on whether or not it is actually false. Bneu2013 (talk) 22:22, 15 May 2023 (UTC)
    My point is, we need to distinguish between outright reporting falsehoods as truth and/or lying and allowing someone to say something on air that is false without taking a stance on whether or not it is actually false. How are we supposed to distinguish them when FOXNEWS, itself, doesn't? There is current evidence that the entire organization was in on the lie, and there seems to be no end in sight despite the looming SMARTMATIC lawsuit...
    CNN 4-23 "Fox denies wrongdoing and is fighting the Smartmatic lawsuit, which is unfolding in New York state courts."
CNN 4-23 “Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said there will be no change in strategy at the company’s top rated right-wing network, despite the firing of its top rated anchor Tucker Carlson and a massive $787.5 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems that resulted in the company swinging to a loss in the just completed period. “There is no change to our programming strategy at Fox News,” Murdoch said in response to an analyst who asked about Carlson’s ouster during the investor call Tuesday to discuss its financial results."
NPR 4-23 "In speaking with investors on Tuesday, Fox Corp. executive chair and chief executive Lachlan Murdoch did not apologize for the network's repeatedly broadcasting bogus claims that Dominion Voting Systems conspired to cheat then-President Donald Trump of victory in 2020." - "Texts and emails disclosed in the Dominion case showed most Fox journalists, executives and corporate officials did not believe the claims of election fraud from Trump and his allies. The network aired them anyway to win back viewers who peeled away after the conservative network was the first to project that Joe Biden would win Arizona. How a civil war erupted at Fox News after the 2020 election What happened at the time and since represents a dual failure, the network's critics argue.
First, executives did not act to prevent Fox's hosts from amplifying and, in some cases, endorsing false claims that Dominion committed election fraud, despite knowing those claims to be untrue. These observers note the company also failed to apologize afterwards publicly or on its programs.
Most news outlets hold that correcting the record on fatally flawed stories is fundamental to retaining public trust. CBS News retracted a story about the deadly debacle at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, based on claims from an unreliable source. The Washington Post corrected accounts of allegations against Trump that did not hold up. Fox has not retracted or appended editors' notes to any of the segments in question. By design, Fox's power rests in the Murdochs
The Hill 4-23
The Independant 4-23"Despite the settlement, there will be no retractions or on-air apologies on Fox, a source with knowledge of the agreement told The Independent."
Fortune 4-23 Murdoch said viewers, and investors, should expect no change in direction from Fox News. “We made the business decision to resolve this dispute and avoid the acrimony of a divisive trial and multiyear appeal process, a decision clearly in the best interests of the company and its shareholders,” he said. Fox still believes it was properly exercising its First Amendment rights to report on newsworthy fraud allegations made by former President Donald Trump, even though that defense was shot down in a pretrial court ruling in the Dominion case, Murdoch said.
That’s important, since Murdoch said Fox intends to use the same defense against a similar lawsuit by another elections technology company, Smartmatic. That case is not expected to go to trial until at least 2025, he said.
Fortune 4-23That response aligns with principles widely touted by professional news organizations and established in the ethical practice of journalism. Although journalism scholars and practitioners vary in their definitions of what a news organization is and who can claim to be a journalist, there is firm agreement that reporting facts, or at least making a good faith effort to do so, is an indispensable mandate for both. Yet Murdoch has not indicated an intention to discipline en masse Fox News employees who violated that ethical principle. Nor is he required to.
Even the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s foremost advocate for ethical journalism, rejects punishments for those who violate its principles. Its ethics code says in part: “The code is entirely voluntary. … It has no enforcement provisions or penalties for violations, and SPJ strongly discourages anyone from attempting to use it that way.” The organization concedes that news outlets can discipline their own journalists. Because journalists and their employers may be considered to be one entity, any disciplinary action is voluntary self-discipline. Neither journalists nor the news organizations they personify have to be truthful unless they want to. Lying in the press is unethical but does not necessarily strip liars of the protections provided by the First Amendment.
There is an exception to this: the defamatory lie, one that injures a person or organization’s reputation. That is what got Fox News sued.
Reuters 4-23
The Hill 4-23"Shareholder sues Murdoch, Fox board members over 2020 election coverage"...DN (talk) 03:33, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
I have carefully read all of these articles, and each one is about something that was broadcast on a talk show, not published in a news article. Not to mention that over half of them are about the same thing, that Fox is refusing to apologize for these broadcasts, a decision I strongly disagree with. I also looked at a list of the 20 segments that Dominion claimed were defamatory, and while I didn't watch the whole thing, I read this summary. 18 of these were talk show broadcasts, at least half of which named something Sidney Powell said, and the remaining two were tweets by Lou Dobbs. While many falsehoods were said during these broadcasts, none of them were reported in news articles by Fox as facts. i.e., Fox never said "The Dominion voting software contained a glitch which flipped votes from Trump to Biden", they just brought people on their shows who said this. You said that "There is current evidence that the entire organization was in on the lie", yet the NPR article you cited completely contradicts this. The investigation has revealed that many of these hosts and executives knew behind the scenes that claims of fraud in the 2020 election were bogus. Yet instead they chose to pander to their audience. I don't like that, but that's what all networks do, and occasionally it gets them in trouble. But I will reiterate that as far as I have been able to determine, the controversy has been about things that were said on Fox's talk shows, all of which are sensationalist and opinionated, not news reporting. I haven't seen it demonstrated that Fox has a tendency to report falsehoods in their news reporting. Sure, it is biased, but bias does not equal inaccuracy. If we disallowed all sources that were biased, we wouldn't have any reliable sources. I'm aware that a lot of people don't like the things that Fox chooses to report on (again, I am not talking about cable talk shows here). I get that, but what matters is if the material they are reporting is true, not whether or not it is biased or anyone cares about it. Another objection that I have seen is that Fox commonly reports on things other people have said or opinions they have expressed. That is not the same thing as reporting opinions as facts. An example would be this article posted less than an hour ago that reports that some people have accused New York Governor Kathy Hochul of improperly handling an ongoing migrant crisis. Are those accusations warranted? I don't know. But the important thing is that Fox is only reporting that people have made these accusations, not taking a stance on whether or not the accusations are warranted. We could argue about the merits of whether or not this story was worth reporting, but the important benchmark that must be met for reliability is if it is truthful or not. If Fox had made up this story or taken a stance on these accusations, then you would see me arguing that Fox is probably unreliable for political reporting.
This brings me to another one of my main points. For a lot of the supports for downgrading I have read, while they do contain many strong arguments, the editors are clearly letting their personal biases show. I have tried my best not to do this; as I mentioned initially, I am not fond of Fox News by any means. However, when I see editors claiming that we should downgrade all political reporting by Fox (or go further) because of something that was said on a program which is clearly opinion, not news, without providing evidence that Fox has a pattern of reporting falsehoods in their news reporting, I feel that is going too far. I won't deny that I am concerned about the ramifications that downgrading Fox News to unreliable could have for the reputation of Wikipedia. Some conservatives have already accused the site of having a left wing bias. I think that most of these accusations are overblown and exaggerated. But if we do end up downgrading the site for all political coverage because of things that were said on opinion programs without demonstrating that the network promotes falsehoods in all of their political coverage, that will be indicative of bias and a disregard of NPOV. Bneu2013 (talk) 22:30, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
It's been shown again and again that Fox's propaganda and misleading info are not limited to talk shows or TV in general, but extend to their news website. See the evidence as compiled in the prior RFC [25] by myself and others, and extensive discussion. Andre🚐 22:45, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
I haven't read all of the articles you provided on that discussion, but I will take a look. It looks like some of them cite "Special Report", which is a not a news program, despite what they may claim. I'm not sure some of the descriptions given about the articles tell the whole story about what the articles actually said, either. But there also seemed to be some editors who didn't think that these were all evidence of unreliability. I'm not denying that there were reporting errors, but all outlets make mistakes from time to time. But cherry picking a bunch of random articles isn't usually enough evidence to demonstrate a general unreliability or reliability or a systemic pattern of such. Are there any academic studies that demonstrate that Fox News' news website is unreliable? Bneu2013 (talk) 00:20, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
There are many such studies as provided by @Aquillion, @JzG, @François Robere among others. Andre🚐 00:22, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
I've seen Robere's list, and most of the citations are to news articles and tweets. I also don't have access to some of the studies, but it appears that some of them are about the influence that Fox News has on people's opinions, nothing of which I am surprised by. While the coverage bias on the website is awful, I don't see that the overwhelming majority of what they publish there is false. That's why I think Fox News articles should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as opposed to outright banned for political coverage. If we can find the same information published by better sources, which we usually can, use them instead. Bneu2013 (talk) 00:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
Well, no information is going to change your mind, and you're not offering any new arguments either. Editors will just have to abide by the consensus when that is formally found. Editors can engage in good faith on arguments about concerns but in the end if you're going to just hand-wave dismiss the copious evidence then there's not much we can reasonably discuss on the merits. But don't act like the evidence wasn't offered. Andre🚐 01:11, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
I don't have time to read through hundreds of articles and studies, but I still plan to look into this more. Note that I have also changed my !vote to "downgrade for all television programs", as I was unaware that shows anchored by Bartiromo, Baier, etc., had not already been downgraded and some people seemed to think that I was arguing they are reliable. I think we have established a consensus that they are not. Just because Fox executives conflate these shows with their website doesn't mean that we should. I stand by my claim that the website is in generally marginally reliable for political coverage, but am open to change my mind if I can find that they have a tendency to publish falsehoods a significant share of the time. But unfortunately, I don't have time to dig through thousands of articles. Bneu2013 (talk) 01:27, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
I referred to a published academic book, based on peer-reviewed research: Network Propaganda. This shows, very clearly, the inflexion point in Fox from being a right-leaning news org - designed by Roger Ailes, remember, so that no Republican president would ever have to resign in disgrace again - to a part of a self-referential right-wing bubble of increasingly extreme sources all chasing the same audience. It documents Fox's replacement of fact-checking with ideological purity as the arbiter of inclusion. We knew this was happening. Shep Smith left because of the lies spread by the opinion shows. Same with Chris Wallace. Chris Stirewalt was sacked for accurately calling an election result first. It is impossible to argue in good faith that the Fox of today is the same as the Fox of 2015. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:57, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
Ok, that's fair. Although I haven't read the book and don't have time to. But from my experience, the shows are indeed not the same as eight years ago. Bneu2013 (talk) 20:55, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes. The lawsuit showed that Fox news, as an organization, intentionally turns a blind eye to facts and truth, and gives a platform to lies, if and when doing so improves the ratings of Fox news. That's a disqualifier for a reliable source. Bammesk (talk) 14:55, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes - downgrade for all time; all topics. Their style and depth of reporting has been consistent with their sister publication, WP:NYPOST. Don't see why they should be treated any differently. Morbidthoughts (talk) 00:05, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose banning Fox I have no idea where to post this; anyone can refactor. Look, folks, Wikipedia itself already solidly leans three directions: "left, lefter, and leftest". Banning Fox is a huge self-congratulating pat on the back and slobbering self-kiss for the Not Silent Majority here. It also further tilts WP, over to "lefter, leftest, and propaganda tool". You are creating a left echo chamber here. Moreover: Russian collusion hoax. Ban... who...? [Note: I freaking hate Trump; I kid you not. He's a buffoon at best and far worse at worst.] But Wikipedia is smugly headed toward propaganda tool. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 11:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
    Your argument is meritless and has no bearing on the discussion. We do not accept or prohibit sources because of their (perceived) ideological bias, that is not the reason Fox News is being considered for deprecation. It is being considered because of a demonstrably proven, and by their own admissions, that they have introduced disinformation into the reporting streams in order to favor a particular candidate and party. Calling to keep Fox because in your mind it balances out the "lefter, leftest, and propaganda tool" is just daft. Zaathras (talk) 16:25, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
    Nah. You missed the part about "Russian collusion hoax... ban who?" Point here is: lefty sources banned? Is not gonna happen, unless they are advocating bombing public buildings. Right sources banned? Yes of course. Naturally. Only common sense, of course, and who could doubt it? Those sources are just so very obviously not RS. And speaking of "by their own admission".... did anyone give back those Pulitzers for the hoax? No. There's no "by their own admission" if you just pretend it didn't happen... and everyone is willing to let them pretend it didn't happen... Please see Ling.Nut's Law. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 12:16, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

References

References

  1. ^ A NATION AT WAR: THE NEWS MEDIA; Cable's War Coverage Suggests a New 'Fox Effect' on Television Journalism, New York Times, Jim Rutenberg, April 16, 2003. Retrieved April 21, 2023.
  2. ^ "Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo is front and center in Dominion's defamation suit". Los Angeles Times. 9 March 2023. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  3. ^ Bauer, A.J.; Nadler, Anthony; Nelson, Jacob L. (2021). "What is Fox News? Partisan Journalism, Misinformation, and the Problem of Classification". Electronic News. 16 (1): 18–29. doi:10.1177/19312431211060426. ISSN 1931-2431.
  4. ^ Conklin, Michael (2022). "The Real Cost of Fake News: Smartmatic's $2.7 Billion Defamation Lawsuit against Fox News". University of Dayton Law Review. 47: 17.

Discussion of close

This discussion was originally closed as following:

The proposal carries. Fox News is considered "generally unreliable" for politics starting in November 2020. There was some support for downgrading further to "deprecate", as well as for having no time-frame on the deprecation, but not enough to clearly establish consensus for that; we would probably need a second proposal for that. Additionally, some people proposed that we should set the "generally unreliable" rating for a date in the future, such as November or December 2024; that's a pretty unique way to handle any source, and I've never seen any discussion propose some future date for such a situation. It's possible to start a new discussion to establish that, but I can't say that there's a clear consensus here to enact that. The previous status for "science" and "pre-2020 politics" as being "no consensus" (yellow rating) has been retained, as this discussion only really considered post-2020 politics. Again, additional discussions may handle those matters. --Jayron32 18:17, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Close reverted per request at bottom. --Jayron32 10:56, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Moving the closing statement to the "discussion of closure" section for clarity/simplicity. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:50, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
I've removed the nowiki formatting and added a note to clarify, as I think this is much clearer (and doesn't involve reading through the wikitext of an archive box). Tol (talk | contribs) @ 16:07, 29 April 2023 (UTC)
I indented the quote Carpimaps (talk) 12:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Jayron32, this has only been open for 3 days, is that really enough time for an RFC on a topic this impactful? nableezy - 02:30, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I've boldly reopened this RfC. Sorry Jayron32 but a project-wide RfC that will have as large an impact as this one should remain open for much longer than 3 days. ElKevbo (talk) 04:40, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
In those three days it got 46 !votes, of which only 4 were opposed. Loki (talk) 04:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
All the same, if you dont want something to be questioned later you let the process play out. And I dare say 50 people is a rather small contingent of the community. nableezy - 04:49, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
@LokiTheLiar: It's particularly problematic for you to have now participated in the close of an RfC in which you participated, especially when the close that you reinstated supports the position you took in the RfC. I strongly urge you to revert your edit and let uninvolved editors close the discussion. ElKevbo (talk) 05:12, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
As I said on my talk page, that was not intentional. Loki (talk) 05:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Well first things first, the thing to do if ask Jayron32 to reconsider their close, and if that is declined to ask AN to do so. Reverting the close to begin with isnt the first step to disputing it. But Jayron32, would you reconsider closing this, despite the apparent snow? RSN RFCs have a huge impact across the project, this was on WP:CENT, and I think people should be given the normal amount of time (30 days) to come to such a discussion to offer their views. nableezy - 05:23, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
+1 signed, Rosguill talk 05:40, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
As one of the few who argued against the change I'm going to say I think Jayron32's close seemed reasonable. This is SNOW territory. The only thing I think would change it is if editors see the firing of Tucker Carlson as evidence that Fox is taking reform seriously. Springee (talk) 11:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
The "normal" amount of time a conversation is to be open is, according to WP:RFC until enough comment has been received that consensus is reached, or until it is apparent that it won't be. There is no required minimum or maximum duration; however, Legobot assumes an RfC has been forgotten and automatically ends it (removes the rfc template) 30 days after it begins, to avoid a buildup of stale discussions cluttering the lists and wasting commenters' time. Barkeep49 (talk) 14:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Correct, so, please reinstate Jayron's close Andre🚐 14:56, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the undoing of the close. It was proper. An early close is standard practice and fully justified when it's a SNOW matter, as this clearly was. It should be reinstated with mention of SNOW. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:02, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
The result of this discussion will determine sourcing in a huge range of articles. We have seen any number of discussions turn over the course of a week much less a thirty days, RfA being one of the obvious regular examples of that happening, and on this board I myself have seen how an influx of votes at the beginning can result in an early closure that would later prove to be unfounded (eg the WP:COUNTERPUNCH RFCs). For as wide as the impact of a project wide consensus on the use of a source I really think we need to have a minimum duration for a discussion. And whats the rush really? You have editors that go through the entire encyclopedia expunging sources and content due to RFCs here. That should only be allowed to happen when we are sure that there is actually a project wide consensus, and not just that the people most invested in an issue, and the most likely to vote at the start, holding sway over the entire project. nableezy - 18:06, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
There is no rush. Nor should there be any desire to spend editor time after consensus is clear just because a bot is assuming that no consensus has been found. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:07, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 Done. Vaya con dios. --Jayron32 10:55, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Jayron32, I think it's important to note in your close that this was a SNOW outcome. -- Valjean (talk) 17:19, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
I never said that it was a SNOW outcome. That word never was used in my analysis. Other people may have used it. I never have. --Jayron32 17:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
You misunderstand me. I'm suggesting that you mention it, IOW tweak your close by adding SNOW. -- Valjean (talk) 17:34, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
My closure statement was an assessment of an actual consensus. WP:SNOW is only invoked if I'm bypassing consensus. Still, I undid my close, per the several good faith requests here to let it run longer. No harm it letting more people express their own viewpoints. --Jayron32 18:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
??? SNOW closures never bypass consensus. They are always consensus closures, they just state the extent of the consensus (near 100%), as this was. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:24, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
Bypass was a bad word there. It is used when there is not enough data to assess consensus (maybe even no comments). In this case, we had something like 50 comments, which, in my good-faith assessment, was more than enough to assess consensus; I can't remember a single discussion on this noticeboard that had more comments at the time of closing. So I closed it, not as a "SNOW" vote, which means "everyone expects the consensus to be this, so we're not going to let it play out", I closed it as a "There's more than enough commentary here to establish the consensus clearly exists". So no, it was NOT a SNOW close, SNOW closes are not overwhelming closes, there closes you make when you make assumptions about how the discussion would play out even though you had incomplete data. I had around 50 people commenting, more comments than nearly any other such discussion on this board, which is not a SNOW close, it's a normal, every day, assessment of consensus. --Jayron32 18:41, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
So then why did you close in the first place?
A WP:SNOW close is when you close a discussion early because there's not a snowball's chance in hell the apparent result will change. If you don't think it was a WP:SNOW close, and the discussion has only run for three days, then why'd you close it?
That would mean it's only run for three days and you still think there's a snowball's chance in hell of a different result. Loki (talk) 21:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
I closed it because there had been sufficient commentary to assess the consensus. --Jayron32 15:39, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Seriously, why wouldnt you rather have a more locked down justification for "consensus" than a three-day long discussion? I dont get it, why are you agitating for this to be closed so quickly? Like why not be able to point to a process that cant be criticized or faulted in any way? nableezy - 18:30, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

The RSP entries for Fox News are going to be a mess after this:

  • Fox news (excluding politics and science) – generally reliable
  • Fox news (science) – no consensus
  • Fox news (politics, –September 2020) – no consensus
  • Fox news (politics, September 2020–) – generally unreliable
  • Fox news (talk shows) – generally unreliable

To make a bad analogy, if an editor had this many topic bans they’d be site banned by now. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 15:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

If you look at the now-reverted RSP changes, I think it looks fine. Andre🚐 15:19, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
  • You're not wrong; I think that it's a bit baffling for people to say that large swaths of Fox could be generally reliable given the degree of deliberate deception on display here and the indicators that it came straight from the top. If Fox is willing to publish outright falsehoods as news in one area to advance their agenda, the logical conclusion is that anything, on any topic, is something they'd be willing to use as misinformation. We can maybe minimize this by construing "politics" broadly, which in my experience is how it generally has been with the existing MREL - eg. a Fox piece playing up crime in NYC is not usable as a WP:RS even if it doesn't directly mention electoral politics, because such a piece has clear political implications. But if we're in the position of having to do that, it means we ultimately have to recognize that no part of the source is reliable. That said, we can always just wait and see if the new breakdown leads to disputes; and, if it does, see if we can obtain a consensus for a more straightforward and standard WP:GUNREL. I think people are unwilling to do that because they feel that Fox looms so large in America; but the same was broadly true for the Daily Mail in the UK, and its deprecation ultimately didn't cause any problems. The simple reality is that what makes a good source for an encyclopedia and what makes a successful cable news network or tabloid have very little to with each other. --Aquillion (talk) 04:51, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    • Even their weather forecasts are unreliable as their agenda is to downplay, ignore, or deny climate change. All other RS weather forecasts mention climate change's influence on weather and the increasing number of disasters, severity of disasters, sea level rise, climate refugees, etc., but on Fox they won't report it that way. Their agenda in so many areas renders them unreliable in toto. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    The problem, I think, is the sheer size of the company. But the closer you get to any battlefield of the culture insurgency - climate science, sexuality, elections, history, race, ethnicity, drug policy, mass incarceration, police brutality etc. - the less reliable they are. In my view, the rating should be "generally unreliable", which has always allowed for local consensus where something is verifiably accurate. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:21, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
  • OK. One could argue that this is not technically WP:SNOW; it is WP:AVALANCHE, which is the same essay. Apart from that, when I brought up SNOW, I was not arguing for a close. I still thought there is value in continuing the discussion to see the opinions on expanding the width of exclusion. There are many above that have called for far stricter exclusions, without even calling in folks interested in science, medicine, LGBTQ, or race for which FN is an embarrassing anachronism. (Putin just slammed Carlson’s dismissal). So, let this continue for a time and then, possibly, have an RfC result that is stronger, and then begin another RfC while bringing in more areas, with the realization that this source has been invalid from its inception as a source and requires deprecation. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:19, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • Responding to nobody in particular: it's not improper to indicate one is opposing any edit by reverting it, but the prescribed way is to contact the closer on their talk, especially a veteran admin; as such I think the close could have properly been reinstated, but, given that the closer has vacated the close, even though it was tending toward SNOW/AVALANCHE (meaning, the overwhelming support or opposition such that we shortcut the outcome), the closer closed it finding a consensus, which there certainly is and continues to be; I understand and am sympathetic to the argument that we should not rush close a 3 day RFC on an impactful and sensitive political topic, and I don't want to suggest that there is a problem with keeping it open longer. Though, again, the right way to challenge a close is to ask on talk, then raise in the appropriate venue, not to simply revert a well-considered close like a totally unconsidered action. At any rate, since we now are keeping it open longer, we may as well keep it open a bit longer at the risk of inviting a stale discussion to fester. Andre🚐 01:32, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • It seems obvious to me that such a major decision should run longer than 3 days, so that proper notifications can be made to WikiProjects[26][27] and interested people have the ability to catch wind of this going on. I agree it does look like this is going to be approved, but we have no idea what biases may be reflected in the people who happen to have already responded to this point.—DIYeditor (talk) 06:28, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
  • One thing I'm concerned about is we might run into a TRAINWRECK when it comes to pre-2020 politics coverage, which plenty of people want to see downgraded too but not everyone in the post-2020 coverage RfC has opined upon. If everyone's okay with it, I'll be happy to open a sub-RFC specifically for pre-2020 coverage. Sceptre (talk) 13:00, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    @Sceptre: Well, I think we'd need to ping everyone who already !voted. Maybe the closer can look at what people have said and try to draw a consensus view from it all. I don't think we would need a majority of people to have explicitly said extend this to pre-2020, since many people have said this or have not specified the timeframe they support (they've used vague terms). If I were closing it, I'd probably say at this point (without carefully going over it all right now) that there is rough consensus that this be extended back indefinitely. —DIYeditor (talk) 15:18, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Is there a limit on the number of pings that one edit can make? I've got a txt file full of everyone who's !voted (up to 2pm UK time), so the pinging isn't a problem. Sceptre (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    My advice would be not to modify the RFC in flight or try pinging everyone, but wait until this one is closed to start the next one. Andre🚐 17:16, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    There is a limit. I don't know off hand how it works. —DIYeditor (talk) 17:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    Sceptre, I agree with Andre. Wait until this one is finished. Creating ANY other Fox News RfCs too soon would sabotage this one and create a clusterfuck of confusion. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:36, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
    I definitely agree that, if the closer does not find a rough consensus for extending the timeline in this RFC, a separate one should be opened for extending the timeline. I also think that RFC should include an option to just declare Fox generally unreliable outside of politics.
    We shouldn't do that until this RFC closes, though. Loki (talk) 15:04, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
    Probably we should wait a little bit to see what impact this RFC has (if it passes, as it seems likely to.) Plus, there will probably be more academic sources referencing the Dominion stuff in a few months (I was surprised I could find anything on these lawsuits at all today), which will better contextualize them and give us a better sense of whether they represent a sharp change or merely a continuation of issues that plagued Fox since the beginning - as well as whether the issues are limited to politics or whether it effectively influences everything they publish. --Aquillion (talk) 15:10, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I am not sure if I am right to ask, but I'll do it anyway. After this RFC is closed, should we open start another one on whether Fox News is unreliable as a whole? A lot of people from the 2020 RFC (myself included) have changed their opinion on Fox News. Scorpions13256 (talk) 01:51, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

Probably. Here comes another lawsuit with more demonstrable disinformation examples, including the claim that the head of the Disinformation Governance Board intended to monitor and censor free speech when that body "had no powers to censor or surveil anyone, it was merely designed to co-ordinate the efforts of other government entities." Fox News lies as naturally as breathing. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:37, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
We have a new example of Fox News lying today. They've been pushing a story about a NY hotel kicking out homeless veterans in favor of migrants. Turns out it's BS. Fox News should be deprecated. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:49, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
I agree. I suggest that we get this one closed first and allow a sufficient time, perhaps several weeks, to elapse. However, I certainly think that it is notable that a great many people who were previously not convinced to downgrade Fox News have changed their view given the revelations that have unfolded due to the lawsuits and the ongoing information about how management mixed propaganda into their operation liberally. Andre🚐 01:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
This blatant and extensively engineered lie was also pumped heavily by the New York Post, even as we have others on this page currently trying to make carveouts for these knowing liars - David Gerard (talk) 13:51, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Date options

From the above, it seems likely that Fox will be downgraded. There is a lot of good faith discussion of the operative date. While it is clear that the facts at issue date back to mid-to-late 2020, there are in fact a couple of options that spring to mind. I think it might be worth a clarification discussion - leaving aside all considerations of whether and by how much to downgrade - of when the inflexion point could be considered to have happened.

I have read, as I have mentioned several times, the excellent and meticulously researched Network Propaganda. This shows a very clear shift away from a fact-checking dynamic, with cross-links to non-partisan and left-leaning sources, which starts in 2015, as Breitbart and others began leaning into the Trump campaign. In my view, that is the point at which the change began, and it was substantially complete by November 2016. That's my personal view, but I think we should look at scholarly sources to see if the Big Lie is early enough, or just right. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:08, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Like I said above, I think the reasonable options are "November 2020" or "all time". I don't think there's any reasonable specific cutoff date before that. Loki (talk) 14:39, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
I understand, but I believe that the turning point was when they decided they could not afford to lose audience to OANN and NewsMax, which is the rationale cited in the court case for continuing to push the big lie. The point where that becomes visible in actual content is early in the campaigning for the 2016 election. Guy (help! - typo?) 07:42, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
Why November 2020? Is this for all of Fox or on specific topics? Even the best sources make mistakes on occasion. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:55, 6 May 2023 (UTC)
Emir of Wikipedia, we are not talking about "mistakes", but deliberate pushing of falsehoods, things they knew to be false. When they tried to tell the truth (which was a mistake), they immediately lost viewers to Newsmax and OANN, so they immediately sought to remedy their "mistake" (which was to tell the truth) by doubling down on lying. This is a "feature" not a "bug" type of thing. Lying is their normal modus operandi, and telling the truth is an exception to the rule.
Don't think this is limited to the current lawsuit by Dominion, for which Fox paid dearly. When Fox News' own fact checkers sought to correct the outright lies told by guests and news hosts, they were threatened and the NEWS division hosts were blocked from touching the matter. This has been going on for years, but the Dominion lawsuit just brought our attention to it. All those private communications revealed that every single person at Fox News, top to bottom, knew Trump's election lies were lies and that Biden won, yet they repeated those lies to audiences to keep them at Fox. That's not an "error" or "bug", that's a malicious "feature" that no "stronger safeguards" can prevent. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:38, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
I’m surprised science was not included. Here is a list of links to what MediaMatters says are steady lies about climate change going back to 2009. Some by opinion shows, some by news shows.[28]. This is a research paper at Cambridge University Press talking about the effects on the pandemic caused by misinformation which mentions Fox[29]. Misinformation like this undoubtedly led to deaths. The problem is that they treat science, weather, gender issues as politics. O3000, Ret. (talk) 21:25, 7 May 2023 (UTC)
Let's assume the RFC will be closed soon and I won't prejudge the outcome although it is fairly overwhelming but it's bad wikijuju to presume. The closer will close it and then whenever they close it, we should then determine what area or additional RFC would downgrade and/or deprecate Fox News for other areas. At worst, generating NOCON results for corollary downgrades and/or deprecations. Andre🚐 01:43, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
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