ONCE AGAIN WE ASK, "ARE FOX NEWS VIEWERS STUPID?"
Gary Ater
October 07, 2009
...The sign of misinformation
Don´t you just love it when a respected, 3rd party organization performs the due-diligence and publishes a report to support what you have been saying for years?
Well, the new PEW Research Study that asked "Are FOX NEWS viewers still stupid?" does just that.
The University of Maryland did a similar study in 2003 that had come to that same conclusion regarding the audience of FOX NEWS. The university apparently received a lot of response to that study at the time. Today however, as MSNBC has grown substantially since that study was done, and since the self-proclaimed "Rodeo Clown" Glenn Beck has made a significant increase in FOX´s viewer ratings, (while losing over 60 sponsors due to his outrageous comment about President Obama), PEW decided to do the study again. However, to prove their point, this time they decided to compare them to all of the other major new sources that were also available back in 2003.
Since MSNBC was not a major "news factor" back in 2003, they chose to not include MSNBC in this latest study.
The News Sources that were used in the PEW study (in alphabetical order) were:
CNN
Colbert Report
Daily Show
Fox News
Google News
Jim Lehrer News Hour
Local Daily Newspapers
Local TV News
Major Newspaper web sites
National Public Radio
Network Evening News
Network Morning Shows
News Magazines
Online Blogs
O´Reilly Factor
Rush Limbaugh
TV News Web Sites
Yahoo News
The basis of the report scoring was "Those that correctly answered 15 of 23 questions regarding US politics and world affairs."
Here are the results of the PEW study showing the percentage (%) of the correct answers to the 23 questions, based on the person´s news sources:
Place - News Source - % Correct
1. Major Newspaper web sites 54%
2. Colbert Report 54%
3. Daily Show 54%
4. Jim Lehrer News Hour 53%
5. National Public Radio 51%
6. O´Reilly Factor 51%
7. Rush Limbaugh 50%
8. News Magazines 48%
9. TV News Web Sites 44%
10. Local Daily Newspapers 43%
11. CNN 41%
12. Google News 41%
13. Yahoo News 41%
14. Network Evening News 38%
15. Online Blogs 37%
16. Local TV News 35%
17. Fox News 35%
18. Network Morning Shows 34%
The PEW researchers stated, "The extent of Americans´ misperceptions vary significantly depending on their source of news. Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely to have misperceptions".
The original University of Maryland study also showed that FOX NEWS viewers in 2003 were misinformed in three specific areas; Iraq and the 9/11 attacks; WMD´s in Iraq; and the lack of international support for the invasion of Iraq.
Per the study, "Those who receive most of their news from NPR or PBS are less likely to have misperceptions. These variations cannot simply be explained as a result of differences in the demographic characteristics of each audience."
What shocked the researchers was the extent to which FOX NEWS viewers were mistaken. Those who relied on the FOX network for news were, "three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold misperceptions". In the audience for NPR/PBS, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any misperceptions."
Back in 2003, while looking at the three misperceptions one at a time, people were asked, for example, if the U.S. had discovered the alleged stockpiles of WMD in Iraq since the war began. Just 11% of those who relied on daily newspapers as their "primary news source" incorrectly believed that U.S. forces had made such a discovery. Only slightly more, 17% of those who relied on NPR and PBS networks were wrong. Yet 33% of FOX NEWS viewers were wrong, far ahead of those who relied on any other outlet.
Likewise, when people were asked if the U.S. had "clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda," similar results were found. Only 16% of NPR and PBS listeners/viewers believed that the U.S. has such evidence, while 67% of FOX NEWS viewers were under that mistaken impression.
Overall, 80% of those who relied on FOX NEWS as their primary news source believed in at least one of the three misperceptions. The viewers/listeners/readers of other news outlets didn´t even come close to this total.
Based on the results of the University of Maryland study in 2003 and the latest PEW Research Study, those who rely on FOX NEWS for their primary news source seriously frighten me for their making well-informed decisions in the voting booth. It seriously takes me back to the old data-input saying that started way back in the 1970´s; "Garbage in, is Garbage out (GI=GO)". If you make up your mind based on the information obtained from watching or listening to FOX NEWS, you will probably be wrong.
(And lately, the information from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity is not much better.)
So for FOX NEWS, the hits on their honesty just keeps on coming, and coming, and……………
Copyright G.Ater 2009
Follow me on Twitter: gater01
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