No facts, please

Written by Gabe Wildau

Published

Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and regional chairman of the Bush-Cheney '04 reelection campaign, urged Nevada voters to rely on FOX News Channel for information about current events. A May 1 Associated Press article reported:

Stumping for President Bush, the former head of the Christian Coalition told Nevada Republicans he can't remember the last time he watched a television newscast on CBS, NBC or ABC.

Now a regional chairman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, Ralph Reed said he depends on the Internet, conservative talk show hosts and the Fox News network to get his information about the world.

And he urged Nevadans to do the same. ...

Reed told the crowd of about 250 Republicans that he has not watched a newscast of a major network in years.

“I get in the car in the morning and listen to Rush Limbaugh. On the way home, I listen to Sean Hannity. At night I watch Fox News,” he said.

Just one day before, Vice President Cheney issued an extraordinary endorsement of FOX News Channel. An April 30 Washington Post article quoted Cheney praising FOX News Channel:

CHENEY: It's easy to complain about the press -- I've been doing it for a good part of my career... It's part of what goes with a free society. What I do is try to focus upon those elements of the press that I think do an effective job and try to be accurate in their portrayal of events. For example, I end up spending a lot of time watching Fox News, because they're more accurate in my experience, in those events that I'm personally involved in, than many of the other outlets.

Media Matters for America recently commissioned a poll conducted by the Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group. Among the findings was that FOX News Channel viewers disproportionately hold inaccurate or false views. “Among daily viewers of FOX News Channel, 72 percent say there is strong evidence about Iraq's possession of WMD and development of nuclear weapons, while only 44 percent of those who watch FOX infrequently say that this statement is true,” the poll found.