I'm basing the title on the results of a
study conducted by the University of Maryland. I'm going to have my friends at Talking Points Memo
summarize the more salient points.
The study found that daily Fox News viewers, regardless of political party, were "significantly" more likely than non-viewers to erroneously believe that:
•Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)
•Most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
•The economy is getting worse (26 points)
•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
Remember, all the bulleted points there? The OPPOSITE is true. To be fair, though:
Daily consumers of MSNBC and public broadcasting (NPR and PBS) were higher (34 points and 25 points respectively) in believing that it was proven that the US Chamber of Commerce was spending money raised from foreign sources to support Republican candidates. Daily watchers of network TV news broadcasts were 12 points higher in believing that TARP was signed into law by President Obama, and 11 points higher in believing that most Republicans oppose TARP.
Which all indicates that there is a bias in the MSM. Weirdly, the bias seems to favor the RNC. Nutty, huh? Who'd have thought?
Why this "study" is junk science at best:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/community/groups/index.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3aa70e3396-6663-4a8d-ba19-e44939d3c44fForum%3a5543a34c-af92-4736-b81b-4aad0ab02e2eDiscussion%3a2a71d0ba-2f7f-4fb9-a7b9-7b4b250a29f1
Which of the items above are matters of opinion, in your opinion?
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I've replied here 3 times, and my response isn't here.
ReplyDeleteThe problem lies in the methodology of the questions ( the last two or three paragraphs in the initial comment I linked to)
The questions posed are topics that are "hot button" issues for Conservatives, while there aren't similar ones for Liberals.
For example, had there been a question posed on education funding, most MSNBC viewers would have responded like you did in another thread, that funding is lower.
The "poll" is flawed, because it used questions specifically designed to prove the point the pollster was trying to make.
I disagree. Some of the questions, even in the brief examples I posted, ARE hot topics for liberals, and as you might expect liberals who mostly get their news from MSNBC and NPR were misinformed according to their bias.
ReplyDeleteWhat the study shows is that Fox Viewers tend to be way MORE misinformed according to theirs. And in either event, your view is that all of the media is biased except FoxNews; why should viewers be biased at all if they watch it?
Are there any topics (not just the ones in the "poll") that Fox viewers aren't misinformed on, and are there any topics MSNBC viewers are misinformed on? In your opinion, of course.
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