The Mass Media 5

Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid
A new survey of American voters shows that Fox News viewers are
significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources.
December 15, 2010 |
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=3409


Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is
detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed
by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of
Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News
viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from
other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox
News increases misinformation.

So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you
think you know that is actually false. This study corroborates a previous
PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was
an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on
the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care. The body of evidence
that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is
growing by the day.

In eight of the nine questions below, Fox News placed first in the
percentage of those who were misinformed (they placed second in the
question on TARP). That’s a pretty high batting average for journalistic
fraud. Here is a list of what Fox News viewers believe that just aint so:

* 91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
* 72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
* 72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
* 60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
* 49 percent believe income taxes have gone up
* 63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax
cuts
* 56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout
* 38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP
* 63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is
unclear)

The conclusion is inescapable. Fox News is deliberately misinforming its
viewers and it is doing so for a reason. Every issue above is one in which
the Republican Party had a vested interest. The GOP benefited from the
ignorance that Fox News helped to proliferate. The results were apparent in
the election last month as voters based their decisions on demonstrably
false information fed to them by Fox News.

By the way, the rest of the media was not blameless. CNN and the broadcast
network news operations fared only slightly better in many cases. Even
MSNBC, which had the best record of accurately informing viewers, has a
ways to go before it can brag about it.

The conclusions in this study need to be disseminated as broadly as
possible. Fox’s competitors need to report these results and produce ad
campaigns featuring them. Newspapers and magazines need to publish the
study across the country. This is big news and it is critical that the
nation be advised that a major news enterprise is poisoning their minds.

This is not an isolated review of Fox’s performance. It has been
corroborated time and time again. The fact that Fox News is so blatantly
dishonest, and the effects of that dishonesty have become ingrained in an
electorate that has been been purposefully deceived, needs to be made known
to every American. Our democracy cannot function if voters are making
choices based on lies. We have the evidence that Fox is tilting the scales
and we must now make certain its corporate owners do not get away with it.