Obama says Fox News viewers ‘have an entirely different reality’ from New York Times readers

Former president speaks out against media polarisation while condemning Donald Trump

Barack Obama has spoken out against the polarisation of the news media, suggesting it has further divided the country during a speech at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston.

The former president said Americans can no longer “agree on a common set of facts” due to the current media environment, describing how the news cycle was previously “governed by the stories that were going to be filed by the AP, Washington Post, maybe New York Times, and the three broadcast stations”.

“Whether people got their news from Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley, they tended to agree on a common set of facts. That set a baseline around which both parties had to adapt and respond to,” he continued. “What you increasingly have is a media environment in which, if you are a Fox News viewer, you have an entirely different reality than if you are a New York Times reader.”

As it turns out, the majority of Americans agree with the former president.

While 56 per cent of Americans surveyed in a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll said Donald Trump has done more to divide the country, 64 per cent of respondents said the media was responsible for dividing the nation rather than uniting it.

On Tuesday, Mr Obama continued to rail against his successor, saying, “Not only did I not get indicted, nobody in my administration got indicted — which, by the way, was the only administration in modern history that can be said about.”

“In fact nobody came close to being indicted,” he said. “Partly because the people who joined us were there for the right reasons.”

The former president has previously discussed his opposition to the continued polarisation of the media, joking during an interview with Bill Maher in 2016 that “If I watched Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me either.”

“You’ve got this screen, this funhouse mirror through which people are receiving information How to break through that is a big challenge.”

Earlier this year, he also said: “If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR.”

Studies have repeatedly shown stark contrasts in the stories reported by Fox News and other conservative outlets compared to major networks like CNN and ABC.

Mr Trump has also decried the news media throughout his tenure in the Oval Office — albeit in a different way, repeatedly calling the “fake news media” the “enemy of the American people” and taking the unprecedented step of revoking a White House press pass for CNN’s Jim Acosta after a controversial exchange during a press briefing earlier this month. The journalist’s pass was later restored amid a lawsuit filed by the network.

The president suggested this week the US government should launch its own news network in order to combat what he claims to be “false reporting” by CNN international.

“While CNN doesn’t do great in the United States based on ratings, outside of the U.S. they have very little competition,” Mr Trump wrote on Twitter. “Throughout the world, CNN has a powerful voice portraying the United States in an unfair and false way.”

“Something has to be done,” he added, “including the possibility of the United States starting our own Worldwide Network to show the World the way we really are, GREAT!”