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Fox News Viewers Uninformed, NPR Listeners Not, Poll Suggests

    A poll by Farleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey showed that of all the news channels out there, Fox News viewers are the least informed.

    People were asked questions about news habits and current events in a statewide poll of 600 New Jersey residents recently. Results showed that viewers of Sunday morning news shows were the most informed about current events, while Fox News viewers were the least informed. In fact, FDU poll results showed they were even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.

    Readers of The New York Times, USA Today and listeners to National Public Radio were better informed about international events than other media outlets.

    In one major example, New Jersey poll participants were questioned about the outcome of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa earlier in the year. A total of 53% of respondents know that Egyptians were successful in overthrowing dictator Hosni Mubarak. Also, 48% know that the Syrian uprising has thus far been unsuccessful in ousting Assad. But on balance, Fox News viewers were 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who were not TV news viewers. Fox News viewers were also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news, suggesting a daily dose of sound bytes from CNN at the gym, and headlines from Google News were enough to surpass what average Fox viewers polled knew about current events.

    Fox News is the leading cable news channel.

    “Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. “Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”

    The kicker is that MSNBC didn’t do all that much better. In one question, some 11% of MSNBC viewers actually believed that Occupy Wall Street protesters were Republicans compared to just 3% of Fox viewers.

    “Ideological media does a very poor job overall,” Cassino told Forbes. “They don’t challenge people’s assumptions. In traditional news, you will find that more often than not, there actually is a correct answer and there is no gray area. People who tune into ideological media are motivated to hear their side of the debate and so you can have someone who watches MSNBC be so used to hearing about protests coming from the right that they automatically believe that Occupy is mostly a Republican protest.”

    Occupy Wall Street leaders are not in support of any political party.

    On international news, Fox viewers were by far the least likely to know that the Egyptian protests led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarek, followed by MSNBC in a distant second for least informed.

    See: Some News Leaves People Knowing Less http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/–Farleigh Dickinson University, poll results and methodology


    Source: http://www.msnbc.com/stories/...listeners-not-poll-suggests/



FNC viewers will deny this reality, thus rendering themselves uninformed about the fact that they're uninformed

TV watchers will deny the reality that they are uninformed about the fact they are uninformed.

Compared to people who read Instapundit and Drudgereport.

people like to read their side news and are always influenced by the ideological media mutually.

I suppose I'd fall into the "Don't watch any news" category. But as far as mainstream international news goes (outside of specialty publications) I've found Reuters to be the best.

I get my international news from http://antiwar.com/ (http://antiwar.com/)

Any polls on MSNBC viewers?  :)

Why did this require a poll? lol

fox audience is the lowest information group, while colbert report/daily show with jon stewart were the most informed. it definitely makes sense, since colbert brings up actual issues to the forefront, like the issue with super PACs. john oliver is pretty great too.

what do the right leaning people here have to say to that? the numbers are fudged because of liberal bias?

http://time.com/2819459/study-finds-watching-the-colbert-report-is-more-informative-than-watching-the-news/
http://nypost.com/2014/06/03/colbert-report-more-informative-than-actual-news-study/

There are always 2 sides on every coin/issue.

It was never a doubt in my mind comedy central and the TV late shows were the place for serious politicians and intellectuals to be seen and heard. Relax. Have a good laugh. Get some Soma.

https://i.imgur.com/LaKAltv.jpg


http://eyegiene.sdsu.edu/2004/220/nericcio/soma.jpg

i as well. but it's sad that our comedy late night shows are more indespensable to educating the public than all of our other news networks.

watching news on tv is not a way to get educated.. it's a way to get brainwashed.

The late night Tv shows are always good at getting an interesting point across
Colbert and Stewart both do a good job at it while making the news entertaining.

Kind of funny when the media does a badder job at dissertation than the comedy networks  ;D

FYI, i watch both the colbert report and the daily show.. and i've also been watching last week tonight with john oliver. i think it's actually better than the daily show, and almost as funny as the colbert report.. and overall, i find it to be more substantive in bringing the topics to the audience.

I'm convinced the daily show and colbert are nothing but propaganda machines, as well as most any other TV media productions. 

multiple sources claiming that the daily show and colbert report are more informative than regular news networks, and you are still convinced that they are propaganda machines. what's your rebuttal to all those surveys?

American, with the exception of internet savvy type, are generally misinformed.

You guys get free cable or something?  I'm not supporting the giant telecom industry.  I've never had nor will I pay for cable, so sadly whatever clips I see of Stewart and Colbert are whatever gets posted here.  I take my savings and buy BTC  ;D

People that watch the news are unemployed and/or have too much time on their hands .

As an unemployed person I resent that :P

People who engage in recreational activities are unemployed or have too much time on their hands? That's probably why NPR listeners are more informed. They all have jobs and are listening to it on the way to work. They're also listening to NPR instead of morning shock jocks or radio music, which is another indicator that they're intellectually superior.

Unemployed or not,having to much free time or not,we all need to listen the news and hear about the things what surrender us and what is happening in our country and around the  world.

Being "informed" is rather relative

I'd be curious to know how many NPR or MSNBC listeners/viewers knew during Hurricane Katrina that President Bush begged the Democrat governor of Louisiana Kathleen Blanco to send the national guard in days before the storm and federalize emergency response in New Orleans and she flat out said no. But who got the blame for not responding to the crisis fast enough?

Politicians on both sides are disgusting animals.

And I thought I was the only one seeing those TV shows for what they are: The King Jester's Union.

LOL I was thinking the same thing about listening on the way to work, to NPR.  IMHO it is much "easier" to be lazy and just listen to your side of the story like on Fox News.  Although NPR is more liberal they do present the other side of the story sometimes. 

Although NPR is more liberal they do present the other side of the story sometimes. Just like foxnews.

I wonder what the survey would have said about bitcointalk posters?

If Fox news was reporting it it would probably sound like this

Today a bunch of libertarian crytoanarchists were posting about the Israel Palestinian issue and THEY TOOK PALESTINES Side
Fox commentator "What are they terrorists can't they see that Hamas is shooting those missiles and they may have weapons of Mass Destruction there Israel needs to defend itself and INVADE ^_^)

So true.

Also in regards to NPR compared to Fox.. Kind of obvious.

Fox has an agenda to fill and while NPR isn't completely unbiased, there are a lot of informative news segments compared to Fox.

Stewart and Colbert are comedians and not news anchors. Viewers watching the shows know these guys are jokers.

Fox News, on the other hand, advertises themselves as "fair and balance".

See the difference?

they are comedians, but they do have a huge impact on society. i find it hilarious that he thinks colbert and stewart are propaganda machines, when they inform the public more than any other news program. i have a feeling that they are "propaganda machines" to him because they are definitely liberal, and he is the opposite.

Colbert and Stewart are at least honest about what they represent, you know what their ideology is and they don't try to hide any of it, that I can respect, it's the fuckers who deny blatant facts and mathematics in the face of something that goes against what they believe that piss me off and the thing is, neo-conservatives and the like are far more blatant about it than any of the people they attack.