About half the country believes that Fox is legitimate media.

Given that legitimacy is exclusively a product of belief, they qualify as a 'legitimate media' source.

> About half the country believes that Fox is legitimate media.

> Given that legitimacy is exclusively a product of belief, they qualify as a 'legitimate media' source.

If we accept the first part as fact and apply the standard implied by the second, then Fox is in a hazy gray area of equally legitimate and not-legitimate, rather than clearly legitimate.

Which seems (ignoring the people who haven't heard of it or have no opinion) about right:

https://www.journalism.org/2020/01/24/media-polarization-app...

> If we accept the first part as fact and apply the standard implied by the second, then Fox is in a hazy gray area of equally legitimate and not-legitimate, rather than clearly legitimate.

This is almost exactly mirrored on the other side of politics. See https://www.journalism.org/2020/01/24/u-s-media-polarization...

> This is almost exactly mirrored on the other side of politics.

No, it's not, if you actually pay attention to the details of the study. Fox is the only source in the study in that weird middle ground, all four of the other top 5 sources Republicans rely on are on the same list for Democrats, and 3 of the other top 5 Republicans trust are on the comparable list for Democrats, and all the ones on either Democratic list that aren't on the corresponding Republican list (as well as, more obviously, those that are on the corresponding Republican lists) are significantly positive in net trust, while Fox is in that weird middle and Hannity on radio (the other one on the Republican trust list) is far in net negative territory. There are differences on the opposite sides of the spectrum, but not the kind of symmetry implied by “mirrored”.

The other half believes that Trump called neonazis and white supremacists very fine people and told people to drink bleach to fight coronavirus. Let's not pretend only one side is biased and uses misinformation for its purposes.

Coronavirus: Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52407177

There is a difference between "suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment" and "tells people to drink bleach". There are many possible treatments being suggested for covid, but that doesn't mean you should try them until they are confirmed to work.

Is there a difference in the outcome? I'm pretty sure that it's not a good idea to inject bleach, but I'm no doctor.

Language only conveys information as accurately as it is interpreted. Ambiguity invites varying interpretations. While ~everyone here knows better, half of the people Trump leads are of a below-median ability to fill in the blanks.

Ambiguity is great when you are running an election and you are trying to appeal to the greatest number of people -- it is not good when you need to convey information in situations where human life is on the line. The reasons we have seemingly obvious warnings on household chemicals are written in blood.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6923e2.htm?s_cid=mm...

It also seems to be a given that you have a convenient definition of legitimacy. But I do so like contributors who are boldly confident in their pronouncements.

CNN / MSNBC are the Democrat version. There are some interesting polls on trust of media by political affiliation from 2012[0] and 2019[1] (these are multi-page sites, interesting stats to poke around).

Then pair that with this interesting talk by Matt Taibbi[2]. His basic argument is that most news organizations target a specific demographics and only cover things that reinforce the beliefs of that group. Fox dominates that for conservatives, while liberals tend to have a wider range of organizations to go to.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2012/09/27/section-4-de...

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2012/09/27/in-changing-...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG1qJeDI9Ok