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Do Fox News viewers believe more COVID-19 misinformation than viewers of other media outlets?

Monday, February 14, 2022
By Jacob Alabab-Moser
YES

Fox News viewers tend to believe more COVID-19 misinformation than viewers of other media outlets.

A 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation examined the correlation between the news outlets people trust and the amount of COVID-19 misinformation they believe. It found that 36% of survey respondents who trust Fox News believe or are unsure of at least half of eight false statements related to COVID-19, compared to 11%, 12%, and 14% of respondents who trust CNN, MSNBC and NPR, respectively.

Fox's own research team accused regular contributors to the network of “spreading disinformation" in an internal memo from 2020 obtained by the Daily Beast.

Fox News was the most distrusted media outlet among 30 polled in a 2019 Pew survey. Forty-three percent of respondents reported trusting Fox, while 40% reported distrusting it.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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