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On the June 19, 2011, edition of Fox News Sunday, comedian Jon Stewart -- host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central -- sat down for an interview with Chris Wallace. Many readers asked us to review one of his claims."Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?" Stewart asked Wallace. "The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll."
Pew then categorized various media sources by the percentage of their followers who earned a high knowledge rating. The media outlets fell into three categories -- those that had 50 to 54 percent in the high knowledge group, those that had 40 to 49 percent in the high knowledge group, and those that had 34 to 39 percent in the high knowledge group.In descending order, the 50-to-54 percent group included The Daily Show and its Comedy Central cousin, The Colbert Report; major newspaper websites; the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer; Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor; National Public Radio; and Rush Limbaugh’s syndicated radio talk show.
• April 2008 Media Survey. Compared to the 2007 survey, the 2008 survey looked at a wider variety of media outlets but used a narrower selection of questions designed to test the respondent’s current-affairs knowledge. The pollsters asked three questions: "Do you happen to know which political party has a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives?" "Can you tell me the name of the current U.S. Secretary of State?" And "who is the current prime minister of Great Britain?" Anyone who went three-for-three earned the high knowledge designation.Here, the range of results was much wider. Once again, Fox News was just about at the national average -- 19 percent of Fox viewers scored in the high knowledge category, compared to 18 percent of all respondents -- but this time a handful of news outlets scored lower than Fox did. With scores ranging from 17 percent all the way down to 9 percent, they were CNBC, local television news, network news, morning news shows, television newsmagazines, personality magazines, religious radio, the Weather Channel, CBS News, Access Hollywood and similar shows, and in last place, the National Enquirer.And once again, particular Fox shows scored well above the average. Hannity & Colmes was one of only four choices to exceed 40 percent -- the others were the New Yorker/the Atlantic, NPR and MSNBC’s Hardball -- while The O’Reilly Factor scored 28 percent, or 10 points above the national average. (Hannity & Colmes even exceeded Stewart’s Daily Show in this poll, 42 percent to 30 percent.)
• June 2010 Media Consumption Survey. For 2010, respondents were asked four questions -- which party controlled the House of Representatives, what post was held by Eric Holder, which company was run by Steve Jobs and which country has an active volcano that had recently disrupted international air travel. This time, Pew didn’t specifically use a "high knowledge" measurement but rather broke down responses by how many were answered correctly by each media outlet’s followers.Once again, Fox News as a whole ranked fairly low among regularly used media outlets -- 20 percent answered all four correctly and 18 percent answered three correctly. Still, those numbers beat the national average of 14 percent and 20 percent, respectively. (The best-scoring outlet, the Wall Street Journal, posted scores of 51 percent and 23 percent, respectively.)Fox actually scored better than its two direct cable-news rivals -- MSNBC, which is a liberal counterpoint to Fox, and CNN, which is considered more middle-of-the-road. Also scoring lower than Fox were local television news, the evening network news shows and the network morning shows.And for the third time, particular Fox shows scored well. Hannity ranked fifth (just ahead of MSNBC’s liberal shows hosted by Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow) and O’Reilly ranked ninth. For the first time, Pew included Glenn Beck in its rankings, and the Fox host finished 12th -- slightly ahead of Stewart’s own Daily Show.
Jon Stewart is misinformed it seems.
There's a reason why patriotism is considered a conservative value. Watch a Tea Party rally and you'll see people proudly raising the American flag and showing pride in U.S. heroes such as Thomas Jefferson. Watch an OWS rally and you'll see people burning the American flag while showing pride in communist heroes such as Che Guevera. --Bob, from some news site
comedian Jon Stewart -- host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central
