The press has frequently been accused of being liberal, and some talk radio is considered conservative. I suppose these opinions may be true to some extent, but one thing is certain: Fox News is a right-wing propaganda machine, as subtle and pernicious as any in history.

There have been numerous objective studies that demonstrate Fox's extreme bias. The Project on Excellence in Journalism reported in 2006 that 68 percent of Fox cable stories contained personal opinions, as compared to MSNBC at 27 percent and CNN at 4 percent. A 2004 issue of the Political Science Quarterly reported that viewers of Fox News were more likely than viewers of other networks to hold wrong perceptions about the Iraq War (35 percent of Fox viewers believed that the U.S. found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whereas only 5 percent of NPR/PBS listeners believed this). A 2010 Stanford University survey found that exposure to Fox News was associated with rejection of mainstream science, specifically global warming. And so on.

I have observed that Fox frequently presents "selected data" that insinuates totally invalid conclusions. It is deeply disturbing that our most popular news program has an agenda to deceive and sway the public.

GARY F. BOOTHE, Pasco