[LEMONS] 10.03.2003
News You Can't Use
It's official:"The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are likely to be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a major new study released in Washington on Thursday.
And the more you watch the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News channel, in particular, the more likely it is that your perceptions about the war are wrong, adds the report by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)."
I remember reading a study a few years ago that watching television news actually made you less informed. This was back when FoxNews was still in its infancy and everyone I knew still chuckled over the "news" appended to its name. We assumed, naturally enough, that everyone else would get the joke too.
They didn't.
Over the years now, I've been alarmed again and again and again at the sheer nerve of FoxNews, and the utter contempt it has for its audience. No other network on television consistantly misinforms its viewers as does FoxNews. Why is that? Either the anchors, producers, and "personalities" at Fox News are brutally ignorant, or they assume that their audience is and can, therefore, be lied to. We report, you decide, indeed.
Just how dramatic is the skew?
Among those who said broadcast media [was their main source for news], 30 percent said two or more networks; 18 percent, Fox News; 16 percent, CNN; 24 percent, the three big networks - NBC (14 percent), ABC (11 percent), CBS (9 percent); and three percent, the two public networks, National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).But is it the chicken, or the egg? Does watching FoxNews make you stupid, or do you just have to be stupid to watch it in the first place?
For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far.
Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between.
If you'll excuse me, now, I want to catch All Things Considered, and there's an article in today's Post I really need to finish. (via mefi)
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