Fox News and its "Uninformed" Viewers

Let me start by saying I don't generally watch Fox News. I tend to get my news online. I have watched it on occasion, though, and I've seen the Left go after them numerous times for "lying", which generally means "occasionally getting its facts wrong", which could be said about any news network.

However, Jon Stewart recently braved actually being interviewed by Fox News's Chris Wallace, where he brazenly sat there and defended himself and the mainstream media, claiming that neither was biased. In his case, he's a comedian first, which excuses everything he says, in his mind and the minds of liberals. He accuses the mainstream media of tending toward "sensationalism and laziness", not bias. Right.

Anyhoo, among the more outrageous statements he made was the claim that "In the polls" Fox News viewers are consistently found to be the least informed. Folks, I've never put too much stock in polls, but Stewart doesn't even cite any actual poll results. He just says "in the polls" and we're supposed to just believe him that the polls say what he says they say. Had I been Wallace, I would have asked "What polls? Who conducted them? What sort of samplings did they take? Did they balance those who watch Fox News exclusively with those who watch both Fox and, say, CNN? What kind of questions were asked to reach the conclusion that a person polled is uninformed?" And so on and so on.

See, you can make poll results skew however you want to, depending on the kinds of questions asked. When polling about how informed viewers are, there's all kinds of ways to play with the data.

For example: if the poll asks "Do you believe anthropogenic global warming is a real threat and that something must be done about it right now?", the question isn't what defines an "uninformed" viewer, and neither for that matter is the answer. It's whether the pollster agrees with that answer. If I answered "no" (and I would), CNN or MSNBC would call me an uninformed viewer, despite the existence of the East Anglia emails and all they imply.

Another example: "Do you believe President Obama's health care plan will improve our current health care situation or make it worse?" Again, depending on what the Pollster believes, either response could mark the replier as "informed" or "uninformed".

That's just one way data can be played with. There are dozens more. Depending on who I worked for, there are numerous ways I can make viewers of my News network the smartest, most informed people in America.

If CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Harvard or Stanford or any other "respected" University, Time Magazine, etc. conduct these polls, you gotta ask yourself: "What would these leftist institutions consider uninformed?" The answer, as should be obvious, is "Those who don't believe their side of the story."

It's one thing to suggest that someone is "uninformed" because he believes there's proof we didn't actually land on the moon, or that he's "uninformed" because he genuinely believes the earth is flat. But those aren't the questions I'm sure these pollsters ask.

Here are some things Leftists believe:

George W. Bush stole the 2000 election.

Sarah Palin thinks she can see Russia from her house.

Rush Limbaugh is the originator of the phrase "Barack the Magic Negro."

9/11 was an inside job.

Response to the Bush administration by the media and left-wing politicians was moderate.

Response to the Obama administration by Fox News and right-wing politicians is inflamatory and dangerous.

The Tea Parties have displayed openly racist signs and slogans.

Tea Partiers shouted racial slurs at the members of the Congressional Black Caucus during the healthcare debates.

Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina was "slow" and the Federal government under Bush's watch is entirely responsible for that tragedy.

See? And this is just the tip of the provably false things they believe and report every day.

Stewart's remarks harken back to what I said in a previous post where I objected to a noted author simply stating "Fox News is lying to you", and expecting that we would believe he was right simply because it's Fox News.

To a leftist like Jon Stewart, "uninformed" simply means "not a leftist."

EDIT: Turns out even the supposedly objective (but left-leaning) website PolitiFact disagrees with Stewart. Stewart's claim is that "in every poll" Fox News viewers are "consistently" rated the least informed. This is not true at all. The polls in general are decidedly mixed, with a few actually showing CNN and MSNBC viewers as being significantly less informed, or at least less up-to-date in their knowledge, than Fox News viewers.