Fox News personalities adorn the front of the News Corporation building in 2019 in New York City.
Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesFox is the nation's most highly rated cable news station and is a favorite of conservatives, Republicans and devotees of former President Donald Trump. But its live coverage of Thursday's Jan. 6 hearing was relegated to Fox Business Network, which is much more lightly viewed, and its digital sites.
To have shown the uninterrupted documentation of the concerted attack on the Capitol in January last year and the concurrent effort to thwart the November 2020 presidential elections would have been to present information that was unwelcome to many core Fox News viewers. After all, the committee's two leaders — Reps. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a Republican — directly blamed Trump for attempting to instigate a coup.
As it turned out, the hearings would also have repeatedly required Fox to have broadcast flat contradictions of what many leading Fox News personalities have told their audiences in the past year and a half — including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. Instead, their prime-time shows continued without commercial interruption Thursday, offering an alternate reality to a hearing that showed vivid and bloody detail of a national crisis.
They also did not point viewers to Fox's coverage on the network's other platforms.
At the hearing, Thompson and Cheney called out Fox and its personalities, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly. Thompson denounced the conspiracy theories circulated to the public. In a three-part series, Carlson famously promoted the idea of a "Patriot Purge," saying honorable citizens participating in a legal protest on Jan. 6 were being wrongly persecuted by the Biden administration. His series relied on claims that had been largely discredited even before he aired them.
On Thursday night, Carlson told viewers the hearing was propaganda, even though he had not seen it. And Carlson dismissed the siege of the Capitol as mere vandalism. Many of those rioters were chanting for then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be brought to them in a climate of violence.
Hannity similarly minimized the harm done, even as Cheney was reading aloud the Fox host and frequent Trump adviser's texts to Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Off the air, Hannity warned that Trump shouldn't talk any more about overturning the election. Publicly, Hannity minimized the seriousness of the attacks after the first few days.
Cheney noted the admonition from William Barr, Trump's final confirmed attorney general, that the claims of election fraud were groundless and that the claims the voting machines of Dominion Voting Systems had been tampered with was "crazy stuff."
There's a good reason Fox News might not want to air that live, either — 1.6 billion reasons, to be precise. Fox had been filled with similar claims by its hosts, personalities and guests in the weeks following the 2020 elections. Dominion later sued Fox in a $1.6 billion defamation suit that is still pending. Fox's legal defense relies on the argument it was merely covering a public debate and statements of prominent figures. But not on Fox News. At least, not live, and not in prime time, on Thursday night.
DirecTV is dropping conservative media channel One America News Network from its selection of channels, a DirecTV spokesperson confirmed to Insider.
The satellite television provider is the network's biggest distributor and has aired the right-wing news channel since April 2017.
The provider is also dropping OAN's sister network — A Wealth of Entertainment — which are both subsidiaries of Herring Networks.
"We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires," a DirecTV spokesperson told Insider over email.
Bloomberg first reported Friday that DirecTV would not renew its contract with Herring Networks after April. One America News also appears on TV provider Verizon Fios, online streaming service KlowdTV, and other smaller distributors, according to the network's website.
OAN's YouTube channel was suspended in November 2020 for spreading misinformation on COVID-19, according to CBS News.
The network became known for being pro-Trump and spreading misinformation, particularly on the election and the ongoing pandemic.
Former President Donald Trump once called the channel one of his favorites, according to Bloomberg, and tweeted about it in 2020: "This is why @FoxNews daytime and weekend daytime have lost their ratings... Many great alternatives are forming & exist. Try @OANN & @newsmax, among others!"
OANN and AWE did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Conservative content is readily available but fact-based information is hard to find. There are posts that only draw your attention and others that teach you about things from a different point of view. For the latest conservative news content, we recommend these best conservative news sites in 2022.
National Review
National Review is one of the best conservative news websites and a place to go for conservative ideas, and it’s still one of the best places to learn about foreign policy. If you want to stay updated, sign up for newsletters like Political Correspondent Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt or Jack Crowe’s News Editor’s Roundup.
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Washington’s free beacon
The Washington Free Beacon, which was established in 2012, publishes a wide range of new material, including unique investigative journalism and biting satire. It consistently offers useful knowledge and amusement, but bear in mind that it is far from impartial.
Official Website
The Federalist
Three key themes run through The Federalist: culture, politics, and religion. They produce unique material that is more analytical than the average news site, though it also follows the conservative pattern. You might enjoy The Federalist if you enjoy reading about counterarguments as well as the main version of a tale.
Official Website
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily conservative newspaper based in Washington, D.C. that covers general interest topics with a focus on national politics. Its daily broadsheet is circulated in the District of Columbia, as well as parts of Maryland and Virginia.
Official Website
The Washington Examiner
The Washington Examiner is a Washington, D.C.-based conservative news website and weekly magazine. MediaDC, a subsidiary of Clarity Media Group, which is owned by Philip Anschutz, owns it.
Official Website
The American Thinker
Although the American Thinker blog doesn’t have flashy graphics, video, or a multimedia invasion, it does have a wealth of conservative opinion material. American Thinker publishes exclusive content that can’t be found anywhere else, often from Americans with incredible political experiences, a point of view, and a keyboard. This article also encourages readers to participate in the conversation and contribute material.
Official Website
TheBlaze
TheBlaze is a website run by multimedia personality Glenn Beck that publishes breaking news, exclusive commentary, and other independent material in a news magazine style, often with videos. This post takes pride in being patriotic and reasonable.
Official Website
RedState
The RedState blog and news source, which was created by Erik Erickson, presents exclusive and conservative opinion pieces in an easy-to-read blog-style format. Every year, the well-known organization hosts a conference at which politicians and prospective presidential candidates attempt to persuade conservatives to vote for them.
Official Website
PJ Media
PJ Media is a website that features unique comments from prominent curators in the form of blogs and columns. PJ Media’s key objectives, according to the website, are to “defend, protect, and preserve what it did and will continue to do to make America great.”
Official Website
Twitchy
Twitchy, which was founded in 2012 by Michelle Malkin, identifies and highlights current news, stories, and events on Twitter, as well as the best conservative tweets related to those stories. The website has both insightful and entertaining elements. Twitchy provides all the excitement you might have in 280 characters or less if you want to hear the news before it becomes news from a conservative perspective.
Official Website
LifeSiteNews
LifeSiteNews.com is a good place to go for regular news and updates on the culture of life. LifeSiteNews.com is a news and opinion website that frequently covers issues including family, religion, and equality. This post is known for highlighting pro-life advocates around the country and does not shy away from discussing hot issues such as euthanasia, stem cell research, bioethics, and abortion. The website’s goal is to “provide a more balanced and factual coverage of the community, life, and family matters,” according to its mission statement. Daily newsletters are also included with the stories.
Official Website
Most Upvoted Quora’s Answer
People often look for Quora’s answer to know the real people opinion on the particular question, therefore, it is worth mentioning Quora’s top answer about “list of trustworthy conservative news outlets” by [Alex Zorach, Political Moderate w/ mix of Conservative & Liberal Views]
According to Alex Zorach, National Review is the most far-right publication I believe is worth reading on a regular basis. It is ideologically conservative, but it is not afraid to oppose or challenge Republican politicians, especially when they behave contrary to conservative values. He suggests The Federalist if you want an even more right-wing viewpoint (in his opinion) that is generally factually sound.
For sources on the center-right, He recommends:
- The Washington Times – For general news with an emphasis on US politics. For national issues, this is my go-to right-center U.S. media outlet.
- Washington Examiner – For more in-depth political analysis and commentary, visit the Washington Examiner. I used to like this a bit more, but after the owners of this and the Weekly Standard closed down that paper, I’ve been a little warier of it.
- The American Conservative – A wonderful ideologically conservative yet non-partisan outlet that adheres to conservative values rather than only towing the Republican line.
- Sites in the “Real Clear” family (Real Clear Politics, Real Clear Science, etc.) – This is more of a news aggregator or forum, and it gathers content from a variety of sources, including both left- and right-leaning outlets, but I believe the bias of story collection is center-right and of high quality. When these portals connect to stories on sites I don’t normally trust (which happens from time to time), the stories seem to be more well-sourced and credible.
- In addition, there are various regional outlets (which he explain how to find below)
Reason is a libertarian viewpoint that I recommend. CATO Institute is another excellent libertarian think tank that publishes some excellent content on its website.
He also suggests searching through Media Bias / Fact Check’s right-center category if you want to find more sources, especially regional sources. There are several regional newspapers and media outlets mentioned there, which can be useful if you’re looking for something with a center-right lean in your city. Although this platform is somewhat restricted in that it lumps all libertarian and true center-right outlets into the same group, you can read about a publication’s viewpoint on the website. They also have a list of pages that are slanted to the right. These listings, on the other hand, are indiscriminate, with both high and low-quality pages. You should go over them and look at the “factual news” sector as well.
There are far more left-leaning news outlets than right-leaning news outlets in the world’s thousands of news outlets. Many people fail to find credible conservative outlets while the public seeks unbiased news and diverse viewpoints to get the whole truth. The average newsreader will possibly infer that Fox News and Breitbart are right-wing, but both have poor credibility scores, according to The Factual (56.5 percent and 54.5 percent, respectively). So, what are the most reliable conservative news sources?
The Factual reviewed 58,000 articles between May 1, 2020, and May 21, 2020, in order to identify the top 10 right-leaning sources that reported at least six times (or twice a week) during that time span. The top ten publications, ranked by their average Factual credibility grade, are as follows:
Conservative news sites keep a close eye on you
According to one study of news sources, the average prominent right-wing platform planted 73 percent more browser cookies than the average popular left-wing site.
Americans are gradually getting their news from sites that support their political views in an age of hyper-partisanship. However, there is more that divides the web’s right and left-leaning sides than their opposing views. According to a recent report, the fragmented online news industry’s right-wing tracks its audience even more vigorously than the left.
Does being conservative or progressive play a role in distinguishing fake news?
The recent prevalence of politically charged fake news and its proliferation on social media has attracted great attention and raised concern about its effects on society. Fake news, when spread by prominent people, has serious effects in many quarters.
On March 29, 2018, US President Donald Trump falsely tweeted that Amazon was not paying taxes to state and local governments and that it was generating a large loss for the US Postal Service, causing Amazon shares to plummet. almost 8% in two days; they bounced back when a White House spokesman said: “no action was contemplated.” Fake news has an effect not only on election results but on almost all sectors of society.
Sectors affected by fake news
- Online marketing
- Gambling domain
- Entertainment
- Media news
In the online domain, each site comes with a terms and conditions section. You can view this section as a binding contract between a company and a user using its services. In case of fake news, this set of rules that each site presents can work as cancellation or suspension of a customer of using the providers’ services. For example, in the gambling domain, there are a series of conditions used to prevent any fraudulent activities. For this reason, it’s a must for a customer to know how to read these terms and conditions so that they know beforehand how to interpret them.
Confirmation bias
What makes people believe fake news? Some studies have shown that people have a confirmation bias, and they tend to believe news and theories that are consistent with their a priori understanding of the problem, regardless of its veracity.
In politics, is this bias the same across the spectrum or are there differences between people who consider themselves conservative or progressive?
In a recent study carried out at IESE, pending publication, we tried to answer the following questions: Does political positioning affect the ability to distinguish between true and false news? Does this ability depend on the political orientation of the news itself?
There have been some studies that examine the spread of news on Twitter. Of particular note is the study by Sinan Aral and his colleagues at MIT that analyzed 126,000 tweet threads and found that fake news reaches 10 retweets twenty times faster than real news.
The nature of this type of study does not allow us to explore the effect, if any, of the political positioning of individuals or how close they are to the political orientation of the news.
Our study wanted to explore precisely this by presenting 444 people with 40 headlines that included an image and a caption as shown in the figure below.
Each respondent had to subjectively rate themselves on a scale of 1 (very liberal) to 10 (very conservative) and judge the veracity of each of the 40 stories on a scale of 1 (definitely false) to 10 (definitely true).
To study the relationship between political inclination and the tendency to believe fake news or not believe true news, we defined the accuracy of each answer based on how close its rating was to its “true” value of 1 (for false). or 10 (for true).
For example, a precision of 10 would mean that the respondent gave exactly 1 for false news or 10 for true news.
Since each respondent also rated himself from 1 to 10 depending on their political position, each respondent had an affinity rating for each of the 40 questions, and we could analyze how accurate people were depending on their affinity to each news item.
We unequivocally prove, like other studies, that people tend to believe any news that is close to their political position, regardless of its veracity.
Our results also show that people are more accurate in judging news, real or fake, which is far from their position – that is, accuracy increases with perspective, for both true and fake news.
When examining the precisions of people with different political inclinations, the differences in the average precision are statistically significant and show that liberals are more accurate than their conservative counterparts for all news, this difference being greater in real news than in fake news.
Those who believe in fake news
That is, self-proclaimed conservatives are statistically less accurate (they believe fake news and don’t believe true news) in greater proportions than self-proclaimed liberals. This difference between liberals and conservatives in our experiment contradicts previous studies where this difference was non-existent.
In the psychology literature, there are studies that show that believing in fake news is associated with dogmatism and a lack of analytical thinking.
In parallel, a political science study shows that American conservatives (self-defined as pro-Trump voters) are more cognitively rigid, dogmatic, and less tolerant of ambiguity than liberals (self-defined as pro-Clinton voters).
It seems that we show, in our sample, that the lower dogmatism and the greater capacity to question one’s beliefs, more accentuated in liberals than in conservatives, has a direct translation in the ability to discern false news from true news.
We must conclude by stating the obvious: we do not judge or attempt to test whether believing a false story has any influence on how an individual votes. We simply assert that, in our sample, conservatives and liberals are different in their abilities to discern fake news from real news.
Final Words
We hope that by having access to quality conservative news outlets from across the political spectrum, you will be able to make more educated choices about masks, vaccines, and even what to do in a voting booth. Understanding the multifaceted nature of many topics in the news today requires considering viewpoints that both fit with and diverge from your own. In a divided world, readers like you are needed to pave the way for shared middle ground.
Credits/Sources – //www.quora.com/What-is-a-list-of-trustworthy-conservative-news-outlets – //blog.thefactual.com/what-are-the-most-credible-conservative-news-sources – //www.thoughtco.com/the-top-conservative-news-and-opinion-websites-3303614 – //blog.feedspot.com/conservative_political_blogs/
– //www.wired.com/story/right-left-news-site-ad-tracking/
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