Conservative Writer Says Fox Make People Less Informed

http://www.inquisitr.com/2105906/fo...mers-says-new-study-by-former-reagan-adviser/

A former Reagan staff member has written an academic paper that says Fox News watchers are less informed about facts and are hurting the GOP. Funny I said this a couple years ago when they were damaging the brand which culminated on election night when anchor Megyn Kelly asked Karl Rove an awkward question:

"Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is this real?"


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/fox-megan-kelly-on-karl-rove-projections-2012-11#ixzz3b4XXiS4R

Kelly, by the way, in this election cycle has been hitting GOP candidates hard. I wonder if she is the future of the channel and might move them from crazy right to center right.

Do conservatives on here agree with the assertion that Fox is hurting the GOP?

 

What I can’t understand is the obsession with FOX News. I have seen this obsession quite a lot over the last couple of months. I really do not understand it, especially when out of approximate 24.5 million viewers of the news, Fox only attracts 1.9 million of them. 90% of viewers get their news from over the air networks, to be precise 6.1 million from CBS, 8.5 million NBC and 7.5 million from ABC. FOX on the other hand averages 1.9 million viewers, a total of 7%, that is way ahead of the other cable news channels such as CNN, 410,000, MSNBC 478,000, Headline News 268,000, CNBC 321,000.

Perhaps jealously on the cable side of the house? On the cable side all the others are liberal vs. FOX who is conservative. Still on the cable side FOX with its 1.9 viewers is relative even with all the liberal networks who have about 1.5 million viewers, just divided up between networks.

But the big winners in the news is the over the air networks who still really have no challengers.

 

If Fox News made people less informed, it would mean that you know less than you did when you tuned into the network. I really doubt that it makes people dumber each time they watch the channel.

 

Don't you get that high viewership for a network that relies upon and strives to keep its viewers ignorant is not a good thing? Conflating viewership stats with the actual integrity and value of a media outlet is obtuse. Honey Boo Boo had great ratings in the area of viewership, therefore it was more worthwhile than a much more educational and informative program? Most Fox viewers already have ill-informed, bigoted and ignorant views and ideologies and watching Fox merely serves as a security blanket to reaffirm these azz backwards views. They cannot handle the truth...so to speak.

 

So you didn't understand my OP?

 

I have no problem with folks who enjoy FoxNews - or MSNBC - as long as they realize they are ideologically-slanted entertainment venues whose products are designed to attract a targeted audience to maximize corporate profits.

One may be far more successful in doing so - just as fans of automobile demolition derbies outnumber those who enthuse over curling.


It's just a case of niche marketing to exploit different strokes.

 

I have watched all three cable news networks during the day, I hate commercials and when one comes on I switch. The news reporting on all three are not that much difference. What is different is the political talk shows at night. But that is not news, they are political propaganda for the two major parties, Hannity, Shultz, O'Rielly, Maddow, Matthews, all propaganda experts that would make Goebbels proud.

That much is for sure. But political talk shows with an agenda to promote a political party is not news. I have no problem with them, let them yak away. But do not call them news.

- - - Updated - - -

Apparently not, as I told Peppermint, there is a huge difference between news and political talk shows.

 

Me neither. What kind of bothers me is how some folks think the political talk shows on those networks are reporting the news which couldn't be farther from the truth. Political propaganda straight out of the RNC and DNC is more like it.

But it is all about money and viewship and how much the network can make in commercials. You are exactly right.

About the only political talk show I enjoyed was "The FIve," on FOX and only because it had Bob Beckel on it. He has been replaced by Ron WIlliams which in my opinion sucks. I use to Watch the McLaughlin Group, PBS but even that ceased to interest me anymore.

 

Now for the rest of the story.

Now you know the rest of the story...good day.

 

Hey, me too! I only watched the 5 because Beckel was on it. But this program was also representative of what FOX's propaganda model is, and how they use it. So, you have one liberal, Bob Beckel, who stutters along, and you have 4 conservatives, to represent the conservatives. That is what Fair and Balanced means at FOX. And so you now have 4 against one, which are the odds that FOX wants, in order to get its propaganda out there, and into the minds of the FOX viewers.

So did Juan Williams replace Bob? I took a vacation from MSM propaganda and have not seen this show for months. Juan actually can get the liberal view out better than Bob, for Bob wasn't the best speaker to do this. But I still liked him there. And he brought some sanity to an otherwise insane panel, that took the Blue Pill.

 

Well, la dee da! I'm a conservative writer (yes, I'm published, plus I'm writing on this forum), and I say Fox News makes people more informed.

There ya have it!

(These days, everyone's a writer, even if it's just goofy blogs.)

 

FOX is just a Neo Liberal propaganda outlet, which means they stand first and foremost for corporate, plutocratic interests, SInce the republican party is a puppet of these interests, the only time FOX will disagree with the repubs is when the oligarchs are threatened, which they seldom are.

One of the roles of FOX is to keep gasoline thrown on the division in America, so that the corporate state can move along, doing what it does, sending as much income to the top as possible. MSNBC does this on the other side. But lest you forget, all of the MSM is owned by 5 huge corporations, who are a controlling factor in this oligarchy, so this will filter the news, to only give us what is good for them. That they will ignore, or if not ignore, they will dismiss non corporate thinkers as being in the same camp and the nutter conspiracy theorists, serves its intended purpose.

So when the Princeton Study came out, showing by evidence that we are moving into an oligarchy, none in MSM covered it. It was instead covered on the conspiracy sites, which is where the oligarchs wanted this coverage to be. You could find it in the foreign press though, but US MSM went out of their way to ignore the biggest story since 9-11. That our republic is dead.

So FOX is just another link in the propaganda machine, and helps to keep the division in the public there and alive and growing. Keep them fighting one another, and the corporate state gets calm waters and full sailing ahead.

 

I don't watch Fox, but Bartlett is the guy who called Obama a "moderate conservative," so, I think we can all agree that he's a couple of crayons shy of a full box.

 

What is funny the anti-intellectual right come in right on cue.
So what we have is.

1. Conservatives don't watch Fox.
2. Fox is liberal
3. The writer isn't worth anything
4. The writer is crazy.

 

I agree that Fox is hurting the GOP, but not for the reasons you might think. It is hurting the GOP because it is too liberal, gives a voice to too many liberals, and promotes RINO republicans. Fox is not conservative enough. What is wrong with Kelly's question to Rove? In hindsight, Rove was way off on the election results and his math was obviously incorrect and she was wise to question his math. On the right, it is not politically incorrect to question the party elitists unlike the lapdogs on the left with their softball, "did you have a good breakfast" asinine questions.

 

No, I totally understand the process! Not only does Fox News provide information that is worthy of 6th graders, but they provide FALSE information.

And, I believe that people who are listening daily to FALSE information are less informed than those who are just ignorant of issues. They are also more dangerous!

 

I agree. Fox News was started in 1996, at first it was a maverick and gave voice to conservatives and had everything to gain by exposing the corruption and stupidity of politicians and their supporters. Now that its been successful its getting entrenched and rather than just reporting, its doing some second guessing on itself and is considering ratings and revenue and access to politicians. Its trying to curry favor, its pulling punches, its trying to give equal voice to everyone including "progressives" even when they are clearly wrong.

 

The actual "study" is here http://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery...104022115091064076009090016104&EXT=pdf&TYPE=2


The study by Bartlett covers a lot of ground, but the section Fox Viewers Misinformed is what this OP is about. That section is highly subjective and reflects Bartlett's personal opinion as much as anything else. Bartlett uses some survey results - actually just certain questions results from some surveys - from various sources, but the questions he uses are not well posed.

For example, as evidence Fox viewers are misinformed, Bartlett says more Fox viewers believe the following incorrect statements (incorrect according to Bartlett):

• most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (8 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)

A few are factual, such as the auto bailout, but most are highly subjective with good arguments on both sides of the item. The worst is "their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)" - people know if their tax went up, Bartlett does not, yet Bartlett assumes the answer.

In another issue, Bartlett lets his personal bias shine through when he writes: "Another 2011 survey by the Public Religion Institute found that Fox viewers were more likely to believe that whites are as discriminated against as members of minority groups and to hold silly and bigoted views toward Muslims."

Read the Bartlett study. For some reason, Bartlett - who now works at the New York Times - personally hates Fox News. Maybe Fox would not hire him and he ended up at the rabidly loony left NYT.

Only "progressives" will find the Bartlett smear piece useful, but they wont read it, they just like to say a "conservative" (actually former moderate) says Fox is bad.

 

There is a place for news-oriented entertainment shows, as long as one bears in mind that the participants are merely spouting opinions, very often in furtherance of personal agendas and not reporting news.

Of those you mentioned, McLaughlin is the only one I once watched frequently. I used to like when Jack Germond used to occasionally blow off the former priest when he'd spout his biased perspective in some issue or other and then demand they all comment, regardless of whether they had any expertise in the matter.

Washington Week at least offers informed commentary from reporters conversant in and prepared for the subjects they are asked to address.

 

I haven't seen him on The Five in about a month. If he is not there, I just continue on through the dial. So I don't know.

 

If I knew nothing of tomatoes and you told me that tomatoes grew on trees, I am still not less informed than I was when I knew nothing of tomatoes. The problem with your analysis is that you assume these viewers want to be informed. They do not. They want their bias confirmed, just as do the people who watch Rev. Al, Rachel "Wehrwolfen" Maddow, and all the rest

 

No, FOX isn't hurting the GOP. Liberals are very critical of FOX, says it's utter crap etc., and it has noting to do with how informative it is. Even if it was the most informative, accurate, etc., liberals would be just as critical because those problems are basically just red herrings.

And it's important to note here - the audience being discussed here is those who listen to/watch FOX ONLY - they don't read the paper, listen to the radio, etc. The main point of the author is not - "nay, FOX bad", it's "nay, using-only-one-source-for-news bad".

But when we're talking about news sources, I'd question how good of a news source inquisitr is. I mean geez, these guys don't even proof-read their articles.

 

Not really. FOX really has no influence on elections.

 

Studies have shown Fox viewers to be less informed than those watching The Daily Show w/ Stewart. And, that's a comedy show!

Do you think Fox had nothing to do with that?

 

yeah you'll have to provide a source.