Monday, December 20, 2010

Watching Fox News as a Road to Stupidity

Of course, we all know that but here is a study that proves it:
Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:

* most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)

* the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)
* their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
* the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)
* when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
* and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)
This is very sad.

4 comments:

Tom Carter said...

I know Fox takes a lot of hits, but I'm not sure it's that bad. I don't see it much, being in Europe most of the time. I'm stuck with CNN International, which is steadily getting worse in all respects, and BBC, which is, well, BBC. When I'm in the U.S. I watch Fox most of the time just to see the difference. My impression is that in delivering the news they're OK, usually with a bit less political slant than most of the rest of the media. Their opinion programs, of course, are completely conservative, with a few liberal tokens here and there. The problem is, most people identify Fox with their opinion programs only. Beyond that, most liberal critics of Fox don't watch it because, well, one just doesn't do that.

eric said...

"Beyond that, most liberal critics of Fox don't watch it because, well, one just doesn't do that."

I've tried watching the network for five minutes, and concluded that a root canal was more fun.

Clarissa said...

"Beyond that, most liberal critics of Fox don't watch it because, well, one just doesn't do that."

-That's just simply not true. I, for one, don't criticize what I don't know. For instance, I have a witness :-) who can testify that I watched Fox News for two days in a row during my recent trip to Chicago. I found the programs to be filled with egregious lies, creepy hysterical outbursts, scary religious propaganda, and very uneducated journalists whose vocabulary is sadly limited.

Anonymous said...

I confirm that Clarissa and I watched a lot of Fox news.

Her loving husband (as some people say).