Survey: Fox News References Abound in Trump's Mueller Tweets

Fox News is President Donald Trump's go-to source for news media references in his recent tweets on special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian election meddling.

That is according to a content analysis by nonprofit Media Matters for America, which is apparently no fan of either Fox or the President.

The group said that 43% of the President's Mueller tweets mentioned Fox, or 43 of the 100 tweets about the probe between attorney general Bill Barr's release of a four-page overview of the conclusions, or lack of them, and April 29.

A quick check of the President's Twitter feed indicated that Fox-centric tweeting continues apace, showing that he had tweeted video from two Fox commentators, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, about the Mueller report in the past 12 hours:

[embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1123787846387630081[/embed][embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1123786579879833600[/embed]

The group said that FNC-favored tweeting is part of the President's efforts to "shape the debate by promoting Fox commentary and urging his followers to tune in to its programs."

The President is unarguably partial to Fox News shows, journalists and commentators while generally lumping other major media outlets into the fake news, Democratic operatives, enemies of the people categories of his other tweets, though he did re-tweet a story Thursday from the New York Times, which he has often labeled a failing fake news operation, after it published a story about potential Trump election opponent Joe Biden and possible conflict of interest issues. The Times was also reporting about Trump's promotion of its Biden story.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.