No, it's not purposeful deflection. I can understand how people would label the Blaze in hyperpartisan. Fox News however, I would put them in the "Skews Conservative, but still reliable" category. Not because of their opinion shows, but because of their actual news coverage team which is excellent. I'm talking about pundits like Bret Bayer, Brit Hume, and such.
As to the those on the center right and center left, they may be looking for more sources. I don't know.
I made the distinction about Fox News coverage vs. the opinion component. The problem for Fox is that the opinions overtake the news and end up influencing the news. So, perhaps if you have a Fox News as a discreet network, it wouldn't be so tilted to the right. As it stands, there is a ton of hyperpartisan garbage on that network - esp in primetime and that's also what draws viewers.
There is a lot of stuff that comes on Fox News that I would *not* say is reliable news, at all.
So, you're essentially talking about one source's placement: Fox. That's hardly enough, imo, to invalidate the chart or say that it's somehow invalid or whatever.
Even if you slid Fox over a single line, there's still a lot of other sources - and I wouldn't even have a huge issue with that (although it feels like they've gone even more hyperpartisan since Trump, and I'd have found that hard to believe post-Obama) - that you could look to.
I wouldn't watch Fox if I didn't have to. And when I do, it's not for information in the strictest news-gathering sense.
There are too many other places to get your news - if that's what you are really looking for.
Most people who tune in to places on either side of that center, though, are looking for validation and confirmation of their biases. They aren't looking for "news"