Study: Fox News Won Election for Bush

Newsmax ^ | 5 May 2006

[Aussie Dasher]

A study by two economists found that the growth of the Fox cable news network in the late 1990s may have significantly increased the GOP’s share of the vote in the 2000 Presidential election and delivered Florida to George Bush.

"Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its audience to shift its voting behavior towards the Republican Party, a sizable media persuasion effect," said Stefano DellaVigna of the University of California at Berkeley and Ethan Kaplan of Stockholm University.

In Florida, they estimate that the Fox effect may have produced more than 10,000 additional votes for Bush, the Washington Post reports.

That would clearly be a decisive factor in a state he carried by fewer than 600 votes.

Fox cable news debuted in 1996 and by 2000 was available to about 20 percent of Americans. That allowed DellaVigna and Kaplan to compare changes in the Republican vote share from 1996 to 2000 in 9,256 cities and towns where Fox News aired.

[Fintan]

LOL! Nearly six years down the track and Dems are STILL trying to figure it out!

 

No, they're still looking for excuses.

[jerry639]

Don't forget that the liberals still claim that it was the fault of all the idiots that voted for him.
That constant claim by the liberals still sticks in my mind. Have every intention of making them pay for that one. Will contribute much more time to campaigning for Republicans this year than ever. Payback time for their insults.

[CFC__VRWC]

They just can't get their story straight. First it was Jeb Bush's illegal meddling, then the "conservative" SCOTUS, then Rush Limbaugh. ....and now FOX News.

You forgot a few.

- The dogs, fire hoses and cop cars at black voting precincts
- The Republican fascists in Miami keeping the canvassing board from taking ballots into a locked room so the votes could be counted "fairly."
- Jeb's lover Katherine Harris making sure black votes were discarded
- All those military people who moved to Florida so they could be tax cheats and cast illegal absentee ballots
- The Republicans' devious plan to make sure Gore voters cast their ballots for Pat Buchanan by getting the democrat election supervisor in Palm Beach County to design the butterfly ballot
- The Republicans' splitting of the liberal vote by forcing Ralph Nader to run.

There's many, many more that I just can't recall right now - makes my hemmorhoids throb just thinking about it.

[KoRn]

"If it hadnt been for them we would have a traitor at the helm right now."

Yeah! They would have signed Campaign Finance Reform, spoke out to ban "assault rifles", loved the Communist Chinese, and practically invited illegal aliens into the country while calling people trying to stop them peacefully vigilantes.

[madison10]

Hate to tell them this...but the VOTERS won the election for Bush. FOX was just slightly more balanced than the other networks.

[ChildOfThe60s]

A more apt headline would be "MSM failed to deliver election for Gore"

You are so right!

[southernnorthcarolina]

In Florida, they estimate that the Fox effect may have produced more than 10,000 additional votes for Bush, the Washington Post reports.

So how under God's yellow sun does that approach "3 to 8 percent" shift in the vote? Ten thousand votes is less than two tenths of one percent of the total 2000 vote in Florida.

Might Fox News have made the difference? Maybe. So might have Rush Limbaugh. So might have Free Republic. But so what? The Miami Herald and the Tampa Tribune and ABCCBSNBCCNNPBSNewYorkTimesWaPostTimeNewsweek was working the other side of the fence.

Did a paper in Ohio tip that state, and the election, to Carter in 1976? He won Ohio by ~11,000 votes out of over 4 million cast; had Ford carried Ohio, he'd have won. Did a paper in California tip that state to Woodrow Wilson in 1916? He won California by ~4,000 votes out of a total of nearly a million cast; had Charles Hughes carried California, he'd have won.

[Liberty Valance]

LOL!!!

[IronJack]

Our estimates imply that Fox News convinced 3 to 8 percent of its audience to shift its voting behavior towards the Republican Party, a sizable media persuasion effect

Our estimates imply that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, the LA Times, the Wasington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Rocky Mountain News, the Miami Herald, the Atlanta Constitution, Time, Newsweek, and Air America convinced 99.9998 percent of its audience to shift its voting behavior towards the Democratic Party, a sizable but dwindling media persuasion effect that is apparently of no concern to this writer.

Correction: All those media, NOT counting Air America, convinced 99.9998 percent to vote Dem. If you add in Air America, the total is more like 99.99980001 percent. Sorry about the mistake.

Further correction: the 0.00000001 percent difference from Air America represents its TOTAL audience, not just those persuaded to vote Dem. The total contribution of Air America to the Dem vote effort is more in the neighborhood of ... one wino and a purple-haired lesbian rat juggler from Queens.

One final correction: the wino WAS a purple-haired lesbian rat juggler from Queens.

[romanesq]

Give me Megyn Kendall or give me death.
She is so sharp and incisive. Not one second of wasted air time with her.

Superb. I wish her continued success!

[Prophet in the wilderness]

" So did they do a study to determine if CNN, the New York Times etc won the election for Clinton? "

Or C.B.S - A.B.C. try to steal the election for Gore.

We can not forget how the MSM called the election for Florida hours before the voting precincts were even closed, in which discouraged some Republican voters to vote for Bush in 2000 election.

[lp boonie]

Bull Shist. Correlation is not causality.

[romanesq]

You are absolutely correct! You never hear the liberals and Dim whiners mention the other Florida time zone that was trashed by the ILLEGAL calling of the state BEFORE its polls closed.

[mcvey]

Let's try this. Since 1860, Democratic candidates for president have won a majority exactly six time (four of those for FDR.) (I have left out 1876, since it was such a mess.) Even in the nineteenth century, the Republican party was the "party of morality." The Republicans have always been the party that was square in the middle of basic American morality. It is what makes us Republicans.

When the MSM controlled all information, it was easier to push some people towards the left or at least prevent the Republicans from being known as the majority party they actually were. I remember those days and ALL the press went to the Democrats. It is no oddity that the two other times a Democrat won the majority of the vote were after the emergence of the TV as a force in politics--LBJ in 1964 and Carter in 1976 (and then barely.)

Fox has given people a chance not to find their identity, but to renew it and see that there are legitimate views beyond that which the MSM proclaim. And in that sense, FOX has done a great service since it means that there is a voice that speaks for the majority of Americans without attempting to change them. We as a nation are more of a community with FOX and with FR and with many of the other emerging conservative outlets.

Given the withering assault on Republicans, on Conservatives, on FOX and on the administration's goals by the MSM and Hollywood, it will be interesting to see if we can hold together in this next election.

McVey

[peggybac]

"Fox cable news debuted in 1996 and by 2000 was available to about 20 percent of Americans."

Interesting thing is that in many cities if you get the basic cable package only, you don't even get Fox - but you get CNN (not sure about MSNBC). The 2nd tier cable package has Fox. So, we don't know how many of the 20 percent of Americans could actually view Fox in 2000.

[man from mars]

THE DEM JUST CAN'T GET IN IN THEIR HEADS THAT THE BIGEST REASON FOR GOP WINNING IS DEM ABORTED TO MANY BABIES 30 YEARS AGO WITH ROE WADE.

[mcvey]

Raises the interesting question of what would happen if the entire country had the same access to FOX as it does to CNN.

When I am in Europe, I get CNN everyplace . I also wonder what would happen if they got FOX. I would also make a bet that FOX financial profile would be greatly increased--not that they need it. Still . . . .

McVey

[mcvey]

It's more than that, see my post #54.

[peggybac]

The lack of access to Fox is also evident in hotels and motels. It's getting better but CNN still dominates.

[mysterio]

I'd say it's a safe bet that Rush Limbaugh and Free Republic had a real effect on it, as well.