What do you do if you’re Fox News and your own poll finds that 59% of respondents think it’s at least somewhat likely the Russia investigation will find that Donald Trump committed “criminal or impeachable offenses?” Why, you simply move the numbers around to make it look like only 40% think so.
Eagle-eyed reader Andrew caught this whopper on FoxNews.com:
Why would Fox News combine “somewhat likely” with “not at all likely?” Well, maybe it’s because the full picture is not so Trump friendly. Although neither the written article nor the video that goes with it breaks down the numbers, if you click through to the full poll results, they are unmistakeable:
Question 48: How likely do you think it is that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation will find that Donald Trump committed criminal or impeachable offenses?
Extremely – 24%
Very – 16%
Somewhat – 19%
Not at all – 34%
(Don’t know) – 8%
Any honest person would conclude that 59% think it somewhat or more likely the investigation will find Trump committed criminal or impeachable offenses while 34% disagree and 8% don’t know. But by combining “somewhat” with “not at all,” Fox massaged the results to give the false impression that a majority (53%) think it unlikely Mueller will find any criminal or impeachable offenses.
The April results included for comparison in Fox’s graphic are similarly misleading. Again, from Question 48 in the full poll:
Extremely – 19%
Very – 16%
Somewhat – 21%
Not at all – 37%
(Don’t know) – 8%
Again, an honest summary would report that 56% think it at least somewhat likely Trump will be found to have committed criminal or impeachable offenses as opposed to 37% who don’t. But in its misleading graphic, Fox once more suggested that a majority (58%) think Trump will be found innocent of wrongdoing.
By the way, in case you believe that the reason so many people expect Trump will be found to have committed criminal or impeachable offenses is because the Mueller investigation is rigged, 59% of the Fox poll respondents say they approve of the Mueller investigation while only 39% do not. The investigation’s approval rate is up from 48% in July. Not even the FoxNews.com article found a way to sugarcoat those numbers for Dear Leader.
Watch Fox leave out views as to Trump’s criminality below in a clip from the August 22, 2018 Special Report.
Correction: A typo incorrectly stated where the April poll results are found in the current poll.