It’s Official! FOX “News” viewers are certifiably dumber:
GOOD JOURNALISM VS. BAD. Supporters of Fox News like to argue that, by virtue of being more balanced and playing it down the middle, the network gets it right where other news outlets, mired in liberal bias and opinioneering, get it wrong. But a new study out from the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland suggests (among other things) that Fox News viewers are literally less well-informed about some basic facts than viewers of other, putatively slanted news sources.
And quoting from the report (Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War, available in PDF form):
Fox News watchers were most likely to hold misperceptions — and were three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three.
Of course, the NEOCONPOOPS© will just dismiss this is liberal media bias, which is why I am grateful that we have Young Republicans college students setting the record straight:
“I think he’s a person of morality. I’d rather have a good man be president than a smart man, hands down…He’s far from stupid. He’s your average Joe American. It would be great if you were the smartest guy in the world and a really moral person. But you’re not going to have that.”
— UW-Madison freshman on “President” Bush and in celebration of stupidity.