This article in the Washington Post gives clear evidence that Fox News willfully deceives its viewers. The data in the article is given in paragraph form, but I have put it into tables here to make it easier to digest.
A survey of Americans was taken to see how many had misconceptions about important current events. The results are as follows:
All Americans
| Belief |
% |
| Link exists between Hussein and al Qaeda |
48 |
| US has found weapons of mass destruction |
22 |
| Most people in other countries backed US war |
25 |
| One of the three |
60 |
| All three |
8 |
Of course, no credible evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda exists, the US has yet to find any evidence of actual weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and support for the US war in Iraq was well below 50% in the vast majority of nations around the world, including Britain and Australia, who actually supplied troops for the effort.
What is interesting about the poll is when the data is broken down according to the primary news source of the polled individuals. That data breaks down like this.
Percent by Viewership
| Belief |
Fox |
CBS |
PBS |
| One of the three |
80 |
71 |
23 |
| All three |
45 |
15 |
4 |
PBS viewers includes those people whose primary news source is litening to NPR.
Each of these misconceptions works to the benefit of the Administration. Each person who believes one or more of these misrepresentations is that much more likely to support the war, the president, and his reelection. Now, I understand that some people support the war for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with these lies (such as the liberation of the Iraqi people). But in a democracy, the people are supposed to evaluate the performance of its leaders based on the facts. What is clear from these polls is that a distressingly high number of Americans and a criminally high percentage of Fox viewers will make that evaluation based on purely false distortions.
Fox is run by Roger Ailes, a former Republican operative. One can only deduce that the accepted strategy within the Republican party is that the only way to win is to keep as much of the American public in the dark as possible.
9:43:55 PM 
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