Fox News Has Successfully Undermined Its Viewers’ Trust in Mail Voting, According to New Poll
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More than half of Fox News viewers believe that voter fraud has been a “major problem” when it comes to voting by mail in U.S. presidential elections, according to a new Pew Research poll. In all, 52% of Fox News viewers see voter fraud by mail-in ballot as a major problem, while only 16% of CNN viewers and 6% of MSNBC viewers see it as such.
At first blush, this could be disregarded as just another media consumption poll that reaffirms what has long been accepted. The top-rated shows on Fox News are all opinion-based analysis shows that have long presented a pro-Trump perspective. President Donald Trump has baselessly argued for months that voting by mail is rife with fraud and that the practice will lead to a “rigged election.”
It apparently bears repeating that Trump himself votes by mail, as do many of his surrogates. Regardless, like much of his sophistry, the argument has been parroted ad nauseam on Fox News prime time and on his favorite cable news show Fox & Friends.
The Pew data comes from the American News Pathways project, which Pew claims “examines how the U.S. public’s news habits and attitudes relate to what they hear, perceive, and know about the 2020 U.S. presidential election.”
A stunning four in five — 82% — of Fox News viewers polled see mail-in voting as a problem. Given that there is no evidence that suggests mail-in ballots will actually lead to a rigged election, this is a stunning indictment of a self-proclaimed news outlet. A news outlet with unprecedented access to the Trump administration, but which seems more interested in promoting Trump’s rhetoric than delivering scoops that, you know, hold the administration to account.
To be fair, some Fox News personalities, such as Chris Wallace, Trace Gallagher, and Juan Williams have each questioned the veracity of Trump’s otherwise specious claims of voter fraud. But the outsized percentage of Fox News viewers that believe in a fraudulent election does not suggest fair and balanced coverage.
Proving a negative of “no voter fraud” is an extremely challenging logical exercise, and yes, there have been isolated examples of lost mail ballots and small scale fraud. But there is no serious evidence yet that the 2020 election is going to be upended by an increase in mail-in voting as a result of the current coronavirus pandemic.
The goal of Trump’s voter fraud rhetoric, however, is not to prove that there is something rotten afoot. After all, if Trump thought voting by mail was actually dangerous, he would propose ways to fortify the process, instead of declaring that the election will be rigged.
Trump’s goal is to question the results of an election he appears to be on track to lose. This comes from a stunning passage of a recent AP report on how Trump is aiming to reset his currently flailing campaign:
Some Trump allies say their best bet is to hope that the results look close election night before some of the mail-in ballots are counted, allowing Trump to declare victory and have the results thrown to the courts.
That’s right, some Trump allies see that the only way to win reelection is to undermine the authority of the results — early, before all the votes have been counted.
This leads us to the remarkable responsibility that Fox News holds on the night of the election and the immediate days that follow. How Fox News news desks choose to cover results — that could very well be in flux for days — has the kind of influence on the course of history that could lead to large-scale protests and civil unrest rivaling what we saw in June.
Fox News programming executives are aware of the onus of responsibility that lays before them. In an interview with Reuters, Fox News Media president Jay Wallace said “I think 2000 still sort of lingers over everyone,” in reference to his network initially calling Al Gore the winner before reversing to undecided. “As competitive as networks can be, you do know that you’re calling a presidency and you don’t want to be wrong on something like this.”
Fox News is the top-rated outlet in this cable news era of political media in which we find ourselves, and they already have 80% of their viewers doubting the fairness of a presidential election — for no good reason.
But if Fox News chooses to report to his loyal viewer base that Trump is getting screwed in the coming election, even without calling a winner, it won’t matter if that’s fair, balanced … or even the truth. At least until there’s proof.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
