Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid
- Thread starter Yassen
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"The poll of 848 Americans was fielded from November 6 to 15, 2010." Suppose they based it on 5 stations; round it to about 200 polls per station. Doesn't seem like enough to me when you consider the country's population. To the point: I believe there's a lot of misinformation that gets spread on the news networks, but I also believe that articles like this tend to spread misinformation.
This. I'm kinda hoping that one of the unquantifiables turns out in FOX's favor, just to see if AltNet will even acknowledge it.Jamboxdotcom said:
So it's as I suspected, Fox news is biased and uninformative just like every other news network. The only real difference is that Fox is slanted to the right whereas most are to the left.
Not surprising to me at all, but the wording of the paragraphs following the data polls inthe OP is such that it really discredits itself.
If they're including an outright attack on the network they've researched, and a call to arms to disseminate the study, then obviously they're just in this to take a crack at Fox. Not to say Fox doesn't deserve it, but it should be self explanatory.
If they're including an outright attack on the network they've researched, and a call to arms to disseminate the study, then obviously they're just in this to take a crack at Fox. Not to say Fox doesn't deserve it, but it should be self explanatory.
Frankly, why anyone watches the news anymore for anything but sports scores and traffic/weather reports eludes me. I won't even listen to the radio anymore if it's not playing music. I may be wrong in this regard, but for my part, I'd rather be uninformed than misinformed (not so much that ignorance is bliss, more that I just don't care at this point).
Truth or no truth, the Newsmedia will say whatever they want to say, and the sheep will believe it. This is not helped by the fact that many viewers actually seem to want the news to have more style than substance. Why? Because most news that is actually substantial is also largely boring. People want to be entertained, not informed; and really, how much actual news can a 24-hour station really report without having to twist stories, if not actually make them up entirely (it happens)?
To make a long rant short, suffice to say that I'd take anything "informative" or "non-fictional" you read in a book or watch on TV with a large chunk of rock salt these days. If you're interested in the Newsmedia-As-Liars thing, though, I'd check out the "10 Things Your Local News Won't Tell You" article on smartmoney.com. I doubt that it's any less biased than any other "informative" resource we're likely to find out there, but it makes an interesting read on the subject, if nothing else. The link is below. Let me know what you think of it if you check it out; I'd like to know just how skewed their facts are, but I'd like to think that I have better things to do with my life than prove them to be liars, when I'm already predisposed to think them to be already. It's still an interesting read, though.
http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/technology/10-things-your-local-news-will-not-tell-you/
Truth or no truth, the Newsmedia will say whatever they want to say, and the sheep will believe it. This is not helped by the fact that many viewers actually seem to want the news to have more style than substance. Why? Because most news that is actually substantial is also largely boring. People want to be entertained, not informed; and really, how much actual news can a 24-hour station really report without having to twist stories, if not actually make them up entirely (it happens)?
To make a long rant short, suffice to say that I'd take anything "informative" or "non-fictional" you read in a book or watch on TV with a large chunk of rock salt these days. If you're interested in the Newsmedia-As-Liars thing, though, I'd check out the "10 Things Your Local News Won't Tell You" article on smartmoney.com. I doubt that it's any less biased than any other "informative" resource we're likely to find out there, but it makes an interesting read on the subject, if nothing else. The link is below. Let me know what you think of it if you check it out; I'd like to know just how skewed their facts are, but I'd like to think that I have better things to do with my life than prove them to be liars, when I'm already predisposed to think them to be already. It's still an interesting read, though.
http://www.smartmoney.com/spending/technology/10-things-your-local-news-will-not-tell-you/
THIS! Right here is truth!tellmeimaninja said:
The so-called "facts" that the respondents were questioned on are controversial matters. Matters where opinion is strong. I would also venture to guess that the questions were not worded as clearly as they were presented in the conclusion.
To say that they disagree on some of these matters makes them stupid is lazy statistics. It would be much the same as if you said that believing in God makes you stupid because God doesn't exist.
And of course the people who watch Fox News are going to share the opinions of the newscast. I'm a conservative, so I stay away from the more liberal news sources (MSNBC or up here in the Great White North, the CBC). Of course, I stay away from Fox too but that's another matter.
In short, this study isn't worth the paper it's printed on. At best, it shows a correlation in how your choice of news media informs your opinion, but that's much the same as saying "New study proves people who look up on a clear day believe the sky is blue."
False and False.Generic Gamer said:
Job gains directly tracable to the stimulus package have already been measured and reported, and yes, they are gains. Long term, that could, theoretically change, but considering the US is coming out of a recession, not going into one, It's unlikely to suddenly result in massive job losses directly attributable to the stimulus package. Long and short, The Stim. Pack. worked, if not quite as effectively as everyone hoped.
Regarding climate change, We know it's happening, we know pretty much exactly how long it's been happening, and we know with a very high degree of certainty what causes it. Anything else you've heard is spin.
significant increases in temperature have been recorded since the dawn of the industrial age, with two of the hottest years in the historical record happening in the last decade, despite a reduction in the energy output of the sun. Climate change correlates almost perfectly with human activity, and while they haven't ruled out the fact that there might be some other conflating variable, or a simple coincidence going on - there is a not insignificant amount of evidence suggesting that it was caused by humans.
The fact of the matter is that almost none of those figures above are opinion or unquantifiable.
?91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs - As of August 2010, the stimulus bill was estimated to have created 3.3 million jobs. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-25/obama-s-economic-stimulus-program-created-up-to-3-3-million-jobs-cbo-says.html]
?72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit - The health reform bill is budgeted to reduce the national deficit by 138 billion [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61O4NV20100318].
?72 percent believe the economy is getting worse - Recession is over (at least, by definition) [http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1214727320091012]
?60 percent believe climate change is not occurring - it is [http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/]
?49 percent believe income taxes have gone up - they didn't [http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/Content/PDF/T09-0101.pdf]
?63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts - it did. [http://thefinancebuff.com/tax-cuts-in-stimulus-bill-updated.html]
?56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout - that was Bush [http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/12/20081219.html], December 19, 2008
?38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP - this is the ONLY claim I'm having difficulty verifying.
?63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear) - /facepalm [http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html]
-m
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Fox "News" should legally be required to change the name of their station. Referring to themselves as "News" is false advertising.
And the craziest thing of all is that "Stewart/Colbert 2012" is less a joke and more a proposal for the two most legitimately qualified of the potentially available candidates. I'd vote for them over a second term for Obama and I'd definitely choose them over anything the Republicans could shit out onto a ballot.Berethond said:
...You know, it seems to me that a study like this needs to use a control group. How did the answers given by Fox News viewers compare to the answers given by the general population?
Also, some of the beliefs the study takes to be absolutely false have somewhat ambiguous truth values. Example: "The economy is getting worse" is taken as incorrect. But what counts as the economy getting worse? The economy has started growing again, yes. However, the federal debt has continued to grow, and it doesn't seem likely to stop growing anytime soon. Both of these are valid, though perhaps not equally valid, measures of the health of the economy. So yeah.
Also, some of the beliefs the study takes to be absolutely false have somewhat ambiguous truth values. Example: "The economy is getting worse" is taken as incorrect. But what counts as the economy getting worse? The economy has started growing again, yes. However, the federal debt has continued to grow, and it doesn't seem likely to stop growing anytime soon. Both of these are valid, though perhaps not equally valid, measures of the health of the economy. So yeah.
Similar fun story from Blighty. When Labour were getting Fox Hunting banned, either there were no news stories about actual foxes, or there was actual reporting of the ban itself.
Now that the Tories are in and trying to get Fox Hunting back, most of the right wing papers will every so often throw in a 'Foxes are vermin that hunt and kill children' story. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that this is not true. Anyone with the slightest hint of common sense knows that you wouldn't hunt urban foxes on horseback with dogs anyway, but it all smacks of a propaganda machine that is literally slipping by unnoticed.
The news is not about the news anymore, it is about whoevers misinformation is the most credible, and then expounding it by only preaching to the choir. The Daily Telegraph doesn't want non-Tories to read it, they want Tories to read it so that they can continue to spread their lies without fear of reprisal from someone who might see through their sham and the left wing papers are no better.
Even The Independent is not independent, which just depresses me, because I remember a time when you could read The Independent for a fairly unbiased, if slightly leftist, view on the days events. Now it just seesaws between sucking the government's balls and radical Communism.
EDIT: And the BBC is not an unbiased news source. When given something to report on, they pick out only the bits which make the report more exciting. Recent example, Vince Cable and the Lib Dems getting caught out by Daily Telegraph journalists posing as constituents, the full transcript was pretty long, the BBC only reported (as did everyone else) on the most controversial topics. The BBC is just as guilty of sensationalist journalism as everyone, believing anything else is a bad idea.
Now that the Tories are in and trying to get Fox Hunting back, most of the right wing papers will every so often throw in a 'Foxes are vermin that hunt and kill children' story. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that this is not true. Anyone with the slightest hint of common sense knows that you wouldn't hunt urban foxes on horseback with dogs anyway, but it all smacks of a propaganda machine that is literally slipping by unnoticed.
The news is not about the news anymore, it is about whoevers misinformation is the most credible, and then expounding it by only preaching to the choir. The Daily Telegraph doesn't want non-Tories to read it, they want Tories to read it so that they can continue to spread their lies without fear of reprisal from someone who might see through their sham and the left wing papers are no better.
Even The Independent is not independent, which just depresses me, because I remember a time when you could read The Independent for a fairly unbiased, if slightly leftist, view on the days events. Now it just seesaws between sucking the government's balls and radical Communism.
EDIT: And the BBC is not an unbiased news source. When given something to report on, they pick out only the bits which make the report more exciting. Recent example, Vince Cable and the Lib Dems getting caught out by Daily Telegraph journalists posing as constituents, the full transcript was pretty long, the BBC only reported (as did everyone else) on the most controversial topics. The BBC is just as guilty of sensationalist journalism as everyone, believing anything else is a bad idea.
