Note: Countless news organizations present this obscenely biased portrayal of events. Fox News is simply the most egregious from this analysis. You can substitute them with the other companies and find similar results (they all purposely deceive the public).

The least educated people in America watch Fox News. In a survey looking at 30 major news outlets in the U.S., they examined people with a bachelor’s degree or higher and found Fox News (was tied with The Joe Rogan Experience) to be the source where the least educated people got their information from.

This is interesting because we (anyone who actually utilizes their brain) all know the news is just a propaganda tool; just look at how perfectly it fits the very definition of it.

Propaganda is information—especially of a biased, misleading, or emotionally manipulative nature—used to promote a particular political cause, point of view, or ideology. It typically involves:

• Selective presentation: Emphasizing certain facts while omitting others.
• Emotional appeals: Using fear, pride, anger, or hope to bypass critical thinking.
• Repetition: Reinforcing messages through constant exposure.
• Simplification: Reducing complex issues to slogans or easy narratives.
  

But apparently, the news operating in this way is not common knowledge.

Our World in Data found that “More than 80% of people...say they follow the news because they “want to know what is going on in the world around them.” When asked how the news makes them feel, being “informed” took the top.

Aside from that outlier, people overwhelmingly cited negative emotions (anger, sadness, scared, confused, etc).

Unfortunately people really think the main stream media is in the business of accurately informing them about what’s going on in the world.

This tells you just how much people look to the news to give them (what they falsely believe is) an accurate sense of the world. If you look towards something to inform you, then you obviously don’t expect that source to be feeding you lies and misrepresenting the truth all the time. Because if you did, then you wouldn’t cite that as a place you go to be informed to begin with. You’d say you go there “just for fun” or purely for a laugh and “entertainment” purposes. Just like you don’t turn to a comedy special to keep up with the latest current events.

The parent company of Fox News, Fox Corporations, cites the word “trust” 6 times in just two of the many paragraphs in its list of guiding principles that determines how the company operates. Fox even states that “Our foremost principles are the accuracy of information, clarity of opinion, and quality of our content.” Now lets see how strongly they hold on to this guiding principle.

We’ll look at the news station which has the easiest time brainwashing their audience.

Now ask yourself, who primarily watches Fox News?

Republicans and conservatives.

And what are Republicans and conservatives views on gun rights?

When asked if it’s more important to protect gun rights or control gun ownership, 88% of conservatives and 83% of Republicans favored protecting gun rights. And 88% of conservatives also said gun ownership does more to increase safety than to reduce it. Additionally, 45% of Republicans and 51% of conservatives personally own a gun.

It’s no secret the Republican Party also receives strong support from gun rights organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and generally sees gun ownership as essential to personal freedom, safety, and protection against government overreach.

Now, knowing the news is the disingenuous, sensationalized, narrative spinning propaganda machine that it is, look at how often they feature homicides in the news, and ask yourself why that might be.

A clean 10% more than the ALREADY heavily exaggerated representation by The New York Times. 52% of Fox News coverage was dedicated to homicides. Try finding the ACTUAL statistics for homicides in the “Causes of Death” chart on the left.

You practically have to squint to see it because it’s LESS THAN 1%.

You read that right: the homicide deaths in America in 2023 sits at approximately 0.74%. Yet the major news outlets want to focus on this obscene violence more than half the time they’re on air.

Think about that – over 63% of the time Fox News wants to highlight guns and terrorism when they actually make up less than 1% of deaths in America.

Imagine moving to a new country for the first time. You’ve heard great things about it from so many people. You’ve got an incredible new high-paying job and you’re excited to live in what you hear is a fun and vibrant new city.

You bump into someone on the street and they mention a local just got killed the other day; it was a homicide. You’re sad. You keep walking around the city, you find a nice place to eat, and the first thing the waitress says to you is “Did you hear about the shooting that happened this morning?” Your face curls up in disappointment and suddenly you don’t have much of an appetite anymore. At this point, you’re starting to get worried about your level of safety in the city. You go back to your hotel to change clothes for a museum tour you’re going to in 40 minutes. The receptionist politely waves you over. As you get closer you realize she wants you to come watch a video. You take a look and it just so happens to be about a homicide that occurred 4 days ago.

Picture this happening to you 49 more times as you try to settle down in your new city. And realize that that is exactly what propaganda outlets like Fox News and so many of the other news organizations do. For every one homicide that takes place, they essentially spam you 52 more times in order to brainwash you into thinking homicides are occurring significantly more than they actually are.

For a more illustrative picture of this. Imagine if every time you opened an email you instantly got sent 52 spam emails. Or every time you went to close a tab 52 new windows immediately popped up in front of it before you could actually close that one tab.

And lastly, imagine if you were forced to experience all of the negative things that someone read out to you. It would exclusively be from a list of negative stories previously discussed on the news. The upside is that you can pick between two durations. You can either experience all of the negative things that they can list off within 44.4 seconds – or everything that they can list off within 38 minutes and 48 seconds.

Now which would you choose?

This is the onslaught of negativity the media feeds you. They take an event that occurs a very small fraction of the time (44 seconds), and they drag it on and talk about it for the next 40 minutes.

Would you rather sit in traffic for 44 seconds every day or 40 minutes? Think about how much each one would affect you. You wouldn’t even call the 44 seconds “traffic,” whereas you would absolutely dread the 40-minute standstill each and every day. You would have to factor it into everything you do; it would negatively affect your entire view of going to work, it would cost you significantly more money, it would negatively impact your mood, it would be a clear source of stress for you in your daily life, it would take your time away from the things and people that you love the most.

Why would these major news outlets so clearly and consistently go out of their way to misrepresent the truth to the nth degree?

It’s obvious that they have an agenda to push. And that’s fear. They are all in the business of getting you to think a certain way and they prey on your fear so that you tune in night after night and start seeing the world as so much more dangerous than it actually is. A news station mostly watched by Republicans and conservatives wants you to remain firmly hardened in your belief that the world is a dangerous place and that you better fight for your right to own guns.

A survey found that 91% of gun owners cited “protection” as one of the reasons they own a gun (72% of those saying it was a major deciding factor). Guess what kind of propaganda from news outlets would contribute to people thinking they need guns to keep them safe in the first place?

Why, spamming the airwaves 52 times for every 1 homicide that takes place would certainly do it.

It’s not about supporting or not supporting gun rights. It’s about how incredibly easy it is for the media to influence an entire population based off their completely distorted misrepresentations of reality.

Lobbyists spent over $14 million on gun rights in 2024, and in that same period the NRA spent over $10 million in an effort to get Republicans elected while demonizing the opposing party (Democrats) via your typical attack ads and TV dramatizations like, “This guy mutilated a family of sheep back in August; don’t vote for him”.

Total Independent Expenditures: $10,151,666

For Democrats: $0
Against Democrats: $3,805,929
For Republicans: $6,345,311
Against Republicans: $426

Manipulate Their Mind, Manipulate Their Vote

When you can predictably control how a large group of people think, you can effectively control their behavior. And that is exactly what many news organizations aim to do. They tell you what to fear (i.e. how to think), and as a result, they tell you who to vote for.

Fox News exaggerates gun deaths → Predictable gun rights supporters eat it up → Fox News profits from a reliable, loyal, and emotionally charged fan base to sell to advertisers → The audience (Republicans and Conservatives) vote red based on gun policy positioning → NRA pours money into Republican candidates → Republicans outreach grows, securing even more votes for election

The mass media’s exaggeration of homicides secures both votes and money for the Republican Party. Two of the most valuable forms of power in the United States.

It’s easy for Fox News to keep bringing up gun deaths because it elicits rage, fosters hate, and leaves viewers feeling fully justified in their beliefs (that they have the right to own guns in this “dangerous world”). This narrative is what’s most profitable for Fox News. It provides a reliable audience that’s addicted to having their beliefs reaffirmed. Like 28 day old cement, they want to harden your beliefs and have them set in stone for decades to come. Because that’s what guarantees them the most money. That’s what keeps them in business.

The People Pulling The Strings

Fox News is owned by Fox Corporation, which is controlled by the Murdoch family. Through a trust granting the family 40% of the voting stock, Lachlan Murdoch is the executive chair and CEO of the organizations that control Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. Similar to his father, Rupert Murdoch, Lachlan is more conservative. So much so he even gave his largest donation ever to Republican Mitch McConnell.

His father Rupert Murdoch was so worried that Lachlan’s 3 other siblings would try to sabotage the media empire that he so ardently built that he tried to alter his trust to prevent them from doing so. Lachlan’s siblings don’t hold the same conservative views as their brother, and one of his siblings, James has even publicly spoken out against Fox for supporting the January 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol, and for their support of the 2017 president.

If Lachlan Murdoch’s views align with the Republican Party, then he has even more reason to overly promote homicides across his news networks. Along with the predictable recurring viewership of his gun-loving audience, he is able to manipulate a large portion of the population into voting for the party that supports his values.

It’s money and political influence wrapped into the barrel of an 9mm.

This is just ONE of the many ways in which the news will purposely shape narratives to get you to think in ways that benefit them.

What we decide to pay attention to determines the life we live. A drug addict focuses on feeding their addiction. A highly religious person focuses heavily on practicing their faith. A workaholic loves to get work done. And a top-tier professional athlete spends a considerable portion of their life trying to be the best at what they do.

When news outlets spend nearly all their time propelling you into an endless state of fear over the incredibly exaggerated prevalence of homicides, terrorism, and drug overdoses. They are telling you to focus on the wrong things.

They are erecting Mt. Everest sized mountains for every 2 granules of salt that drop on the counter. They are painting the world to be some horrific hellscape that you couldn’t possibly hope to survive. So instead, just stay inside all day endlessly consuming their eternally depressing news full of scores of death and despair. With enough killings and terrorism to fill a million Olympic sized swimming pools each and every day.

News outlets basically do their damnedest to make your everyday life look like a fucking war zone. That’s how much they want to destroy your sense of well-being in the world. “If a country isn’t at war, let’s act like they are!” is the only motto they live by.

The more you’re afraid, the more you’ll turn to them to seek (some twisted sense of) comfort as familiarity and a life devoid of thoughtful intention steers you into the same meaningless nonsense day after day.

Terrorism is so insanely misrepresented by news outlets, that it can’t even be put into words.

This alone shows you how much news outlets want you to live in a chronic state of fear.

Terrorism was exaggerated more than 18,200 times than it actually occurred. 16 people died from terrorist attacks in 2023. But they literally wanted you to believe that was the biggest threat in the entire world. Like I said, they want you to believe you’re at war.

Heart disease and cancer made up 56% of deaths, yet the news outlets only gave it 7% of their coverage. I guess that form of death just isn’t marketable enough for them. They would rather you worry about significantly less common ways of dying so the most common ways can just sneak up on you in your sleep and completely catch you off guard.

Closing

Once again, this is about the news and mainstream media as a whole. Fox News was simply the most hell-bent on promoting homicidal behavior, but they are all at fault for being the untrustworthy propaganda machines that they are.

The mainstream media just wants to be the number one drug the nation consumes.

They are desperate for your attention just like shitty Meta is desperate to keep you hooked on Instagram. They are desperate to keep you engaged just like OpenAI is to get you to keep using their lying 1000 follow up question asking ChatGPT.

They are all the same. Endless deception, manipulation, misrepresentation, and mindless nonsense all to make a dollar off of you.

A Note On People Who Can’t Think:

The author of the analysis had one of the dumbest takes I have ever heard, and it would be disingenuous of me not to address it. In short, she claimed that news outlets “respond to what people want”. Terrorist attacks, homicides, disasters, and plane crashes offer a “unique headline,” so to her, it makes sense and therefore justifies that organizations report on these more.

This is such an unbelievably mindless take that signals somebody who has no morals, stands for absolutely nothing in life, and couldn’t care less about their fellow human being.

Glorifying and promoting death and horrendous acts of violence LITERALLY all day every day just because it’s a “unique headline” and it’s what people will tune into does not, for one second, justify the obscene fearmongering. There is NO WORLD where the news outlets fetish for exaggerating horrific deaths is justifiable like this lady is claiming.

She then goes on to say that many successful forms of entertainment that focus on tales of crime, killers, etc., also exist. And uses this to support how the news is “responding to what people want”. Yeah, so if all of a sudden running people over in GTA 6 starts becoming a massive trend, then it shouldn’t be a surprise when people start copying that behavior in real life, and the news outlets just endlessly report on it, because well, “It’s successful in a popular video game so I guess you can’t blame the news outlets for glorifying people getting ran over” according to this female author.

The fact that murder mystery and crime are ALREADY so prevalent across other forms of media is only more reason for the news to NOT exaggerate it so much. This is like saying "Oh hey, since porn is so common and ubiquitous across the internet, I think news organizations should start glorifying it a lot more too!" This is her logic. Give the world MORE of what it DOESN'T NEED.

“And because media organizations need traffic and attention to survive...” All I can say is this is a prime example of why some people should never be in charge of anything. She’s justifying the glorification of violent deaths and terrorism because the news outlets “need” traffic. These “news” outlets literally cause people MORE HARM than they do good, and she’s advocating that it’s okay and completely understandable that they prey on people’s fear. And keep in mind, she literally cited this study herself that said people feel more negative emotions than positive ones when watching the news. She cited this HERSELF! The lack of logic and ability to think rationally in some women is simply unbelievable.

By her asinine logic, you better let scammers scam you because after all, they need your money to survive. According to her, it doesn’t matter if they are CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY spreading evil in the world. Since getting rich quick is a popular desire among people (just like she cited true crime content is popular with people), then apparently “it would be wrong to put all of the blame on them” (the scammers wanting to scam you). That’s her brilliant logic for you.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Murdoch family that owns Fox and other news outlets sits at a comfy +$24 billion. The 92nd richest billionaires in the world, but according to her astounding female logic, “media organizations need traffic and attention to survive,” so let them glorify and wrongfully promote as much death, terrorism and homicides as they want.

Because apparently, news organizations are run like your local mom-and-pop store (in her mind) and they desperately need your attention to survive. The tens of billions of dollars their owners have couldn’t possibly hold them afloat. They couldn’t possibly find a way to make money other than preying on people’s fears. It’s not like paywalled articles exist. I bet no one has encountered those. Ads, donations, countless other business models. I guess those don’t exist either. And best of all, the news (in its current state) has a net NEGATIVE impact on people, yet she STILL supports and justifies their malicious and deceptive fearmongering practices. What an absolutely brilliant mind on this lady. 0 logic whatsoever, 0 values whatsoever, 0 compassion and understanding for the people whatsoever.

When everyday people have such infinitesimally small degrees of logic like her, it’s no wonder the world is in the state that it’s in.

Vlad 🤗 ✨

Let others know just how deceptive the news is so they won’t fall for the constant fear mongering.

Sources:

Where The Most Educated Get Their News

Republicans Trust Fox News More Than Any Other Outlet

Protection Is The Number One Reason For Owning a Gun

Mortality in the United States, 2023

Annual Lobbying on Gun Rights

Gun Rights vs Gun Control Spending

Fox Board of Directors

Fox Guiding Principles

Who Owns Fox News: The Murdoch Family

Three Murdoch Siblings Sell Their Shares

Note: Personally, I stopped watching the news well over a decade ago once I noticed how negative, mindlessly repetitive, and useless it really was.