This morning, Media Matters called attention to a questionable graphic from last Friday’s Fox & Friends, and several media sites latched on to what appeared to be an error. However, the network sees it another way.

TVNewser simply added up numbers in their headline: “59% + 35% + 26% = 120%” while Huffington Post noted “Fox News’ Fuzzy Math.” And later, Media Matters sent an open letter to Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente, who had recently put Fox staffers on notice after a few mistakes that there was now a policy of “zero tolerance for on-screen errors.”

“The erroneous percentages Fox & Friends showed in its graphic added up to 120 percent (even without the 15 percent who responded that they weren’t sure).,” wrote Ari Rabin-Havt, Media Matters’ vice president of communications and research. “More importantly, Fox News' presentation of the data made it seem as though 94 percent of Americans think it's at least "somewhat likely" that climate scientists falsify their research data.”



Here's the breakdown: Fox's "somewhat likely" number of 59 percent in the graphic includes the Rasmussen categories of "somewhat likely" (24) and "very likely' (35). But then the "very likely" category gets a spot of its own underneath. So its understandable why a viewer would look at the numbers stacked up like this on-screen and assume that "94 percent of American's think it's at least 'somewhat likely' that climate scientists falsify their research data."

But Lauren Petterson, executive producer of Fox & Friends, told POLITICO that she sees no error in the graphic. And for that reason, there will be no reprimand of staff under the “zero tolerance" policy.

“We were just talking about three interesting pieces of information from Rasmussen,” Petterson said. “We didn’t put on the screen that it added up to 100 percent.”

Indeed, here’s the paragraph from Rasmussen’s article that Fox was referring to with the graphic:

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Americans say it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it’s Very Likely. Just 26% say it’s not very or not at all likely that some scientists falsified data.



While Petterson maintains that Fox & Friends didn’t err in displaying the information from Rasmussen, she acknowledges that the presentation wasn't perfect. “The mistake I do see is we could have been a little clearer here,” she said.

UPDATE: Media Matters' Rabin-Havt responds to POLITICO:

"Lauren Petterson clearly did not watch the segment in question. Host Steve Doocy agreed with Media Matters’ interpretation seeing as he attempted to add up these numbers as they appeared on air and said “so you get 90 – you got a lot of people.” On Fox News, percentages don't add up to 100 and, apparently, "zero tolerance" means unless we get caught."

Looking back at the clip via TVEyes, Doocy did mention the number 90, which was followed by some joking about whether the number could move closer to 100 percent. (Clip here)

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