Out Foxed: Fox News Make You Stupid

So, we rented OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism yesterday. I can't say I was shocked by most of what I saw, but it was very entertaining. It brought back memories of my very first college semester when one of my professors said, "Fox news does not count as a credible source; do not use them in your papers any more than you would use an article from the Onion."

I know it's sad but true, the conservative mouth piece that is Fox news is not known for their journalistic integrity, but we all know that, right? (If you are not with me on this one you need to see Outfoxed) What did catch me slightly off guard was an official study done by the PIPA/Knowledge Network Poll (Misperception in the Media) that basically came to the conclusion that people who watch Fox news are considerably more ignorant of world affairs than people who get their news from sources like PBS or NPR. Now, I'm the type of person who likes to check my facts and rather than taking Al Franken's (who I love) word for it I decided to look up the actuall study myself.

Here are some of the things I found most compelling.

• When asked whether there was "Evidence of clear links between Saddam Hussien and al-Qaeda" 67% of Fox viewers said yes, while only 16% of PBS agreed with the statement. I think that is too high for PBS, but nowhere near the number of misinformed Fox watchers.
• 33 % of the Fox audience surveyed thought that we had found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq after the war ended; only 11% of PBS viewers were so misinformed.
• 35% of Fox's audience thought that the majority of the world favored the U.S. actions in Iraq, while 5% of PBS viewers agreed with the statements. (This may have been unfair because the question did not say that brown people's opinions counted too, a view not common among Fox viewers [my observation, not PIPAs]).
• 80% of the Fox audience surveyed believed at least one of these misperceptions, while 77% of the PBS audience didn't believe any of them.

There you have it folks. The average Fox viewer is 4 times as likely to have distorted views of world events as their PBS-watching counterparts. I can only conclude that watching Fox news makes you stupider.

However, on an interesting side note, the study does break down the misperceptions along party lines as well, and it is worth noting that regardless of which station they watched, Republicans were much more likely to believe false statements about the war in Iraq. 78% of Fox Republicans and 50% of PBS Republicans (I know it just sounds wrong) believed the misperceptions. On the flip side, 17 Fox democrats (Yes, this sounds equally wrong) and 0% of PBS Democrats believed the same misperceptions.

There you have it, Democrats who stear clear of Fox news are the most well informed of all the groups, with Fox Democrats coming in second, followed in a distant third by PBS Reublicans and dead, dead last are the Fox Republicans.

Sorry kids, but Fox can be seen as nothing other than conservative propaganda being hurled at an already illinformed Republican base. So please, hear this warning: Friends don't let friends watch Fox... and for good measure don't let them vote Republican either.

Peace!

Rachild