Misleading America
Published on Monday, October 20, 2003 by the United Press International

Misleading America

Commentary by Shaun Waterman


WASHINGTON -- It's official -- watching Fox News makes you ignorant.

To be precise, researchers from the Program on International Policy at the
University of Maryland found that those who relied on Fox for their news were
more likely than those who relied on any other news source to have what the
study called "significant misperceptions" about the war in Iraq.

Pollsters asked more than 9,000 Americans about three commonly held canards:
that the United States had hard evidence Saddam Hussein had been working
closely with al-Qaida; that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; and
that world public opinion was in favor of the U.S.-led war.

Overall, a scary 60 percent believed at least one of these fallacies. Eight
percent believed all three.

The most commonly held was -- unsurprisingly -- the Iraq/al-Qaida link. Fully
48 percent of respondents believed this. The totals for the other two were in
the 20 percent to 25 percent range.

But among those who get their news from Fox, 80 percent had at least one
"misperception" and 45 percent -- nearly six times the overall average -- had all
three.

Let the bashing begin!!!

[Edited on 18-1-2004 by TheCatalyst]

Sometimes they've even gone so far as to seemingly track misconceptions to a singular instance of FoxNews (what is the word?) chatter?

E.D. Hill in some of her more fervent "Bush so sexy" lauds, has speculated (something an anchor should never do) so frequently on such nonsense like Bush goes to Crawford so much because it's a working ranch, and he has to do all that work himself. AND PEOPLE BELIEVE AND REPEAT IT!

Worst E.D. Hill moment: Since Bush was a trained pilot, he landed the jet himself on the USS Lincoln. This was evident since the first two anchor wires were missed, and had it been the AF pilot, he would have landed perfect. A profile of the real pilot, Commander Skip Lussier was being broadcast on CNN opposite the pro-Bush water cooler speculation of Fox.... which remained largely uncorrected. Skip himself said later, no we don't let the President fly himself.

And why should we? Most states won't let him drive a car?

I do not agree with this statement. Fox News is basically the only news station I watch, and I'm not an ignorant person.

This is just some more liberal propoganda.

Originally posted by TheConservative
I do not agree with this statement. Fox News is basically the only news station I watch, and I'm not an ignorant person.

This is just some more liberal propoganda.

The judgement of "ignorant" may be lib propaganda, but the finding that among a sample of 9,000 news viewers, those that report ONLY watching Fox are more likely to incorrectly answer questions about world events is probably more of a statistical truth than anything.

But if you only watch Fox, then I understand why you would consider the truth to be "more liberal propaganda".

If you rely on Fox News to get informed then you are not informed at all. I stopped watching the mainstream media news a long time ago. I get all my news from websites from all around the world so I get different perspectives. You'd be surprised how much news gets reported all around the world but doesnt even get mentioned by the mainstream media in the US. Trust me .... you are not even getting half the story.

Originally posted by TheConservative
I do not agree with this statement. Fox News is basically the only news station I watch, and I'm not an ignorant person.

This is just some more liberal propoganda.

This is what the poll is proving. I personally do not believe that all people who watch (sp?) Fox are ignorant. But from your statement TheConservative, and many of those 9.000 people, truly believe that there is a "liberal bias" in the media, and that the Iraq war was concieved from true facts.

I have one tip for you TheConservative, try to keep an open mind. For instance, if you believe that your views (conservatism) is correct, then try to watch some liberal shows or listen to some liberal talk shows. By doing this you will become much more intelligent.