This Just In From The Mars News Channel… 10/30/2020 – MediaPost Communications

A variety of polling, sophisticatedmarket research techniques, modeling and expert political forecasting in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign season points to Joe Biden winning the presidential election, at least by a narrow margin,and possibly more. Some of the research also suggests the biggest loser of the election wont be the incumbent President, but the American public. But not for the reasons you think.

A revealing insight from Ipsos tracking suggests a significant percentage of Americans wont accept the outcome of the election -- no matter what the outcome -- and thatits not because of simple political partisanship, but because they actually come from another planet that has an alternate view of reality.

That planet is calledFox News Channel, but according to Ipsos top political expert Chris Jackson, it might as well be called Mars.

advertisement

advertisement

This is really important to understand, Jacksonsaid during the last in a series of Ipsos political briefings leading up to this years election, noting were not even necessarily talking about the same reality. In a lot of ways,some of us are talking about Mars and others are talking about Venus.

Citing studies Ipsos conducted with Reuters and Axios, Jackson noted that regardless of their politicalaffiliation, Americans who get their news from Fox have a different sense of reality.

The studies, which asked voters of all parties whether they agreed or disagreed with two facts-- the official U.S. COVID-19 death toll and whether they approve of the Presidents handling of it -- found alternate views of those realities even within the same party, depending on whetherthey depended on Fox as their source for news.

We see a huge difference between Fox News Republicans and non-Fox News Republicans, Jackson said while presenting thedata shown in the chart above. He also noted the same thing was true among Independent voters, depending on whether they got their news from Fox or not.

Theres a strongdivergence about what we understand to be ground truths and ground facts, Jackson bemoaned, adding that this disparity could create problems next week based on how various mediaoutlets report on the elections results, especially if it is a close election.

How partisans interpret that reporting is really going to impact how we all handlethat post-election period, Jackson forewarned.

While Jackson didnt explicitly editorialize on the culpability of any media outlets, this is an opinion-based politicalblog, so I think its fair for me to say his findings illustrate just how dangerous Fox News Channel has been to American democracy. Istead of unifying us around common ground, it has focused onspreading alternate views of truth that have contributed to what Jackson described as the most chaotic political season ever. And based on his caution, it likely will be the most chaoticpost-election period, too.

I understand that, at some level, offering a different political point of view is healthy for democracy, but offering different facts is not. Thatsnormally the role of hostile foreign agents -- especially Russians -- who use disinformation as part of their hybrid warfare to destabilize Western democracies. It shouldnt be the role of ahomegrown American media enterprise.

Worst of all, it has proven to be a successful business strategy, driving Fox News ratings and revenues. According to a Pew ResearchCenter analysis, Fox News ad revenues actually surged 41% during the pandemic. And Im guessing that wasnt all from the My Pillow Guy. Im guessing a lot of it came frommainstream consumer brand marketers who actually care about the negative impact Fox News disinformation -- er, I mean alternate facts -- are having on Americandemocracy.

So I just have to ask -- at a time when you all seem so consumed by brand safety -- youre not applying the same standards to Americassafety?

Continued here:

This Just In From The Mars News Channel... 10/30/2020 - MediaPost Communications