When Jon Stewart ripped Fox News on Fox News on Sunday, he argued at one point that the station was actively harming its audience with its distortions: "Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers? The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll." Last night on The Daily Show, he admitted that he himself had been misinformed on that point...and then proceeded to list 21 statements by Fox that independent fact-checking organization PolitiFact has proven to be false. Watch below:
As you get a hint of from the screenshot above, Stewart was eventually crowded out of the screen by all the falsities—he was so tired from recounting all the lies at one point, he needed a snack for an energy burst "to climb Mount Fib." Stewart cited two "Lie of the Year" awardees ("A government takeover of health care" and health care "death panels"), five Pants on Fires and 14 False ratings. Politifact has all of the articles referenced by Stewart in one place here (which stretches from 2009 to this month).
Stewart summed it up with this metaphor: "Fox News is like a lying dynasty. They're like the New England Patriots. Of lying! Without the patriots part, because we all know, patriots cannot tell a lie."
