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Study Confirms that watching no news is better than watching Fox News.


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  • Zach F
    2014-02-24 06:06:47 AM
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    A study was done to gauge how informed people were about both domestic and international news. The study showed that people who get their news from Fox News scored lower than people who watch no news at all when it comes to both categories.

    Both MSNBC and CNN scored slightly higher than people who watch no news when it comes to domestic matters but scored lower in the international category.

    Those people who listen to talk radio and, oddly enough, the Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart scored the highest.

    Taking pot shots at Fox is always a lot of fun but it seems that the 24-hour cable news networks are just terribly at keeping people informed, which is really odd because they are by far the most popular sources. Here is the article if you want to check it out.
  • ClayTaylorNC
    2014-02-24 01:04:53 PM
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    Stephen Colbert is my favorite. I can't ever watch more than 2.26 minutes of Fox, and I can't even stay on the same channel as Nancy Grace or I start getting sick.
  • jamesn
    2014-02-24 01:50:21 PM
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    If you read the article in the link provided you will notice that the headline doesn't tell the whole story. I'm a big fan of telling the whole story.

    Read the first line of the article: ..."Media outlets such as Fox News and MSNBC have a negative impact on people's current events knowledge."...

    Notice that both Fox News AND MSNBC have a negative impact according to this article. And there may be an article out there that says just the opposite. Lefty articles say one thing and righty articles say other things.

    It shows that Fox has the most negative effect but MSNBC is right behind. Both those viewers pretty much have their minds made up on what they want to hear, so they go to the source that gives it to them.

    I do agree that NPR and Sunday shows viewers knowing more about what is going on. I personally prefer CNN because they don't have as much of an agenda as the other two networks.
  • Zach F
    2014-02-24 02:52:25 PM
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    jamesn Wrote: If you read the article in the link provided you will notice that the headline doesn't tell the whole story. I'm a big fan of telling the whole story.

    Read the first line of the article: ..."Media outlets such as Fox News and MSNBC have a negative impact on people's current events knowledge."...

    Notice that both Fox News AND MSNBC have a negative impact according to this article. And there may be an article out there that says just the opposite. Lefty articles say one thing and righty articles say other things.

    It shows that Fox has the most negative effect but MSNBC is right behind. Both those viewers pretty much have their minds made up on what they want to hear, so they go to the source that gives it to them.

    I do agree that NPR and Sunday shows viewers knowing more about what is going on. I personally prefer CNN because they don't have as much of an agenda as the other two networks.
    Yeah, I, as well as the article, made it a point to show that 24-hour cable news (Fox, MSNBC, CNN) made a very poor showing in the study. It wasn't hidden or anything.
  • eternal flame
    2014-02-25 01:45:44 PM
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    It did not seem a very valid comparison to me. So few questions overall, & much too small a sample of people being questioned. None of which seemed capable of answering even one-half of the questions right. Possibly it produced the "desired results" of the producer? When it comes to disparate forms of media, the results are going to be "skewed" anyway. Studying the memory level of Fox News fans, is sort of like watching bark beetles eating up a tree. The results are slow in coming, virtually inevitable, & very disappointing.
  • jamesn
    2014-02-25 01:58:22 PM
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    ..."The results are slow in coming, virtually inevitable, & very disappointing."...

    Absolutely right.

    And according to the referenced article, MSNBC viewers are almost as bad as Fox News viewers.

    But, it's only one article, just one source, a single point of view.

    ..."skewed"... results? Very possible.
  • RanmaMOJ
    2014-02-25 02:37:38 PM
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    Found a list of their questions and their data sampling. Their own tables don't match up with what they say, since they don't have a question asking if the news you said yes to is your only source. How can you prove that a person 'watching only Fox News' is less informed when your own data shows that people get their news from multiple sources. (Just adding the numbers from the Democrat and Democrat leaning sample, and the Independents that get their news from Local TV news you exceed their sample, a mere 1185 people) And none of the questions listed break down where people got their news, just what their political affiliation is. Here's their study http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2012/confirmed Sorry, I don't see a how they got the results they did.

  • jamesn
    2014-02-25 06:47:30 PM
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    This seems to be another example of an article that is picked up by people who want to believe it. A headline that is designed to grab attention, more than reflect accuracy.

    I don't know how truthful it is or how precise their methods were, but when the headline does not even seem to agree with the first line of the article itself, you have to question it.
  • Schmidt
    2014-02-26 10:13:57 AM
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    A couple of books that I recommend for your enlightenment. You can read the reviews at the Amazon links below.

    The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine

    “Fox News has created a generation of woefully (and objectively) misinformed ideological sycophants to pursue its radical agenda. It's no accident. Now David Brock and Ari Rabin-Havt show that no matter how unethical and dishonest you think Fox News is, the reality is that they're much, much worse.” —Markos Moulitsas, publisher, Daily Kos


    The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country

    “The book excels at compiling data establishing Ailes’s control freakishness and authoritarian nature. . . . A veteran of the New York media-reporting scene, Sherman nails the Fox News palace intrigue and brings to light interactions that Ailes clearly never wanted to go public.”—Erik Wemple, The Washington Post

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    "People believe what they want to believe...and Fox News provides that outlet, especially for the right wing crazies." -- Schmidt
  • RanmaMOJ
    2014-02-26 12:43:41 PM
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    Schmidt Wrote: A couple of books that I recommend for your enlightenment. You can read the reviews at the Amazon links below.

    The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned a Network into a Propaganda Machine

    “Fox News has created a generation of woefully (and objectively) misinformed ideological sycophants to pursue its radical agenda. It's no accident. Now David Brock and Ari Rabin-Havt show that no matter how unethical and dishonest you think Fox News is, the reality is that they're much, much worse.” —Markos Moulitsas, publisher, Daily Kos


    The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country

    “The book excels at compiling data establishing Ailes’s control freakishness and authoritarian nature. . . . A veteran of the New York media-reporting scene, Sherman nails the Fox News palace intrigue and brings to light interactions that Ailes clearly never wanted to go public.”—Erik Wemple, The Washington Post

    --------------------------------------

    "People believe what they want to believe...and Fox News provides that outlet, especially for the right wing crazies." -- Schmidt
    The Fox Effect : A book based on 'research' by an organization (Media Matters) that has practically nothing on their site but bashing Fox News and virtually nothing about the other news organizations. Sounds like a 'single source study' to me...

    The Loudest Voice in the Room : A book by the New York Times which has long been outspoken against Fox News and has ignored facts in favor of promoting liberal views. (i.e. making a big deal about Bush releasing plans for Nuclear Warheads and only having one small statement about where the United States got those plans at a time when there was a huge debate about Iraq and WMDs) Sounds like yellow journalism to me.

    Is Fox News biased? Yes, I have never denied that, but to use biased sources to support you just shows your bias as well. Fact is if you want to prove Fox News is biased, use Fox News website, there's enough proof their in the stories they cover and how they cover them. All news is biased. (example: CNN reporting on the Military under Bush loosing millions of tons of enriched weapons grade uranium in Iraq and using it to bash Bush, then reporting that it was thanks to Obama that Bin Laden was found and killed when the infrastructure [which Obama did not change or even touch in any way to improve] was established by Bush, but using the story to praise Obama and how Intelligence Gathering has advanced under Obama)

    To bring this back to the point of the thread, people watch news to be told what is happening in a way they agree with. If you want a liberal view, you watch (I'll go with one we can all agree on) MSNBC. If you want a conservative view, you watch Fox News. To get the full story and be able to be considered well informed you should watch/get your news from a variety of sources, including those you don't agree with.
  • eternal flame
    2014-02-27 05:05:35 AM
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    Hi RanMaMOJ: Your comment was reasonable & well-intentioned, & in better times, it would have made perfect sense, to get all your news from a variety of sources, even the ones you disagree with. But that was back when we had something called "journalistic integrity," & people had morals and basic honesty about their motives for writing. Various awards were given out to those who risked their lives to expose the Truth, (like Woodward & Bernstein exposed the Watergate Scandal, in Nixon's Admin). Not much going on there, except attempts to rig an election, bribe high officials to keep their mouth shut, including the Atty General (Mitchell), the GOP running a brothel to blackmail US Senators, & breaking into Democrat Hdqtrs to "bug" the telephones, & the GOP murder of Martha Mitchell (wife of Atty Genl). Just your ordinary GOP political tactics : )

    In TODAY'S GOP media, you will hear such things as "Don't EVER listen to any "lame stream" media, because they will lead you astray" -- & they have such genius minds as Sara Palin echoing that refrain. It is a deliberate attempt to PREVENT any "mainstream media" from being heard on Air Force One, & by our own US military, in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, & other hell holes of deployment. Our fighting men must be kept in check, by listening to only right-wing propaganda. In the military, "no independent thought" must be allowed. They must all be "obedient" 24/7, no dissent.

    By the "echo chamber" of GOP mass-media, spreading repetitious lies 24/7, & having spent $billion$ of dollars over the last 29 years, to brain-wash the American public -- to manipulate their minds, their opinions, & especially their votes, -- the subversive aspects of the right-wing in the USA, are readily apparent. People like Lush Limbo tell so many lies, they have to "unscrew" their heads, to go to bed at night. And the lies are deliberately fashioned as to create the maximum damage to the Democratic party. That is not "politics as usual" but the kind of subversion you would expect in a fascist society. Like the Nazi's blasted venom against the Jews, the most similar paradigm is when the GOP blasts away a barrage of LIES against the Democrats. It is not just for winning an election. It is deliberate character assassination, so as to annihilate the enemy & any power he has left.

    If both parties had equal respect for the Constitution, for human rights, for personal freedoms, & wanted all our citizens to have the basic right to live their lives with ability to make a living wage, to vote, to get an education, & worship at the church of our choice. If both believed, as Democrats do, that we have a right to clean air & water & to have uncensored text books. We have a right to REAL Science, which was a REAL BIG FACTOR to our Founding Fathers. "The Age of Enlightenment." Now, the GOP want to go "backward" to the time BEFORE we had an Age of Enlightenment. If we let them continue on this course, pretty soon we will be either Planet of the Apes, or totally extinct.
  • that guy in Arizona
    2014-09-15 09:33:47 AM
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    A recent poll by Rasmussen revealed that roughly 33% of United States voters were not aware of which party controlled either the House of Representatives or the Senate. The poll indicated that Republicans are slightly more aware of who's in charge than Democrats, although there are an awful lot of Republicans who don't have a clue either. I'm taking a wild guess here, but I'm pretty sure that an awful lot of those ignorant people are regular viewers of the FOX network.


    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/september_2014/just_63_know_which_parties_control_the_house_and_senate
  • Dutch
    2014-09-15 10:05:56 AM
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    Sure, I watch a lot of channels, however seldom Fox; due to the fact we read most of the news from the Dutch media, we may get another view on how things are published here. Indeed the media here is heavely controlled by certain huge investors like Murdough and others who are typical "bilionairs" who only see "money" and "GOP" dominance as their objective; not the thruth. Also I guess the US government via the NSA and others has influence on it. News can be bribed one way or another, especially with elections, depending on who pays the most. Thus my opinion is that the news here is very corrupted, related to the important things. International news here is more or less only important if it affects the US; if it affects others they do not care. Because of this self fullfilling news, things are often published in a skewed fashion. Twisting facts is a national hobby; take the Ferguson case for example. Furthermore the CIA and our government seldom tell the thruth about what they shoot down wih their drones, as well about what they are actually doing in Iraq with a 5000 men Embassy, how many civilians they killed by mistake etc etc. No the media is heavely controlled and censored here. Sorry to say that kind of indoctrinates people here because they do not know any better then what is shown here.
  • AmcmurryFreedom
    2014-09-15 11:33:42 AM
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    I do find FOX News and "The Five" (except Bob) revolting. Bob is the only part of "The Five" that carries the show. Bob becomes the cut down guy receiving all the evil flying monkeys taunting and ridicule. Fox is just so biased anti-anything, but Republican agenda.

    I jotted down my news channeling this morning and without mentioning the local news stations. Below is my rating 1-12 with 12 being the lowest.

    1. OAN (One America News)
    2. CNN
    3. Fusion Line
    4. HLN
    5. AJAM (Aljazeera)
    6. MNBC
    7. BBC (Britain)
    8. NHK (Japan)
    9. CNBC
    10. Local News (all stations, such as Today)
    11. FBN
    12 FNCH


    I'd rather watch the Today Show on some cooking thing than watch FOX. However, when The Five is on when I surf through the channels, I'll watch Bob and see what the other four are accusing Bob of being just "Bob". Bob must be paid very well to catch the crap those evil flying monkeys give him. Whenever Bob disputes the other four, they gang up on him and don't let him finish, like some grade school playground tactic. Purely, Bob is the FOX crap boy. I feel sorry for him, but I can realize he cries all the way to the bank. I like Bob.

    There are other news networks and they do offer a better or another look at what America's news provides. I believe news is controlled by those who instruct reporters on what they can say and what they cannot say. I'm enjoying OAN currently and it advertises true news reporting and so far it does look more free on allowing to report the news accurately. Maybe their right, what other options do we have other than catch them at their distortions of the facts.
  • Dutch
    2014-09-15 11:58:42 AM
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    Sure I can follow your points; however as a remark the BBC channel here is very censored versus the real Britisch one; I do not know about the NHK channel because I never looked at it. Aljazeera is sometines right on and sometimes censored. So whatever news enters the US, I think it is either monitored/controlled or censored. Sorry we live in a "controlled/influence peddling country"; ask the NSA and CIA and some other hidden agencies.
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