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A new study shows that viewers who get their news from Fox News are the most misinformed in the country.

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World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.

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So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false.

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Study Confirms That Fox News Makes You Stupid

A new survey of American voters shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources.

This study corroborates a previous PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care. The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day.

Fox News placed first in the percentage of those who were misinformed. That’s a pretty high batting average for journalistic fraud. Here is a list of what Fox News viewers believe that just ain't so:

•91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs (Though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded that the stimulus legislation has saved or created 2.0-5.2 million jobs, only 8% of voters thought most economists who had studied it concluded that the stimulus legislation had created or saved several million jobs. Most (68%) believed that economists estimate that it only created or saved a few jobs and 20% even believed that it resulted in job losses.)

•72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit (Though the CBO concluded that the health reform law would reduce the budget deficit, 53% of voters thought most economists have concluded that health reform will increase the deficit.)

•72 percent believe the economy is getting worse (Though the Department of Commerce says that the US economy began to recover from recession in the third quarter of 2009 and has continued to grow since then, only 44% of voters thought the economy is starting to recover, while 55% thought the economy is still getting worse.)

•60 percent believe climate change is not occurring (Though the National Academy of Sciences has concluded that climate change is occurring, 45% of voters thought most scientists think climate change is not occurring (12%) or that scientists are evenly divided (33%).)

•49 percent believe income taxes have gone up (86% assumed their taxes had gone up (38%) or stayed the same (48%), while only 10% were aware that their taxes had gone down since 2009.)

•63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts

•56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout (53% thought that the bailout of GM and Chrysler occurred only under Obama, though it was initiated under Bush.)

•38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP (40% of voters believed incorrectly that the TARP legislation was initiated under Barack Obama, rather than George Bush.)

•63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear)

The conclusion is inescapable. Fox News is deliberately misinforming its viewers and it is doing so for a reason. Every issue above is one in which the Republican Party had a vested interest. The GOP benefited from the ignorance that Fox News helped to proliferate. The results were apparent in the election last month as voters based their decisions on demonstrably false information fed to them by Fox News.

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Asked for comment on the study, Fox News seemingly dismissed the findings. In a statement, Michael Clemente, who is the senior vice president of news editorial for the network, said: “The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.’”

For the record, the Princeton Review says the University of Maryland ranks among the “Best Northeastern Colleges.” It was No. 19 on the Review’s list of “Best Party Schools.”

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That FOX outdraws it's next 3 competitors in viewers combined can't be overlooked.

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Both votes were governed by emotions and not knowledge of the issues that any of the candidates stood for or against.

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People are generally ignorant of what is going on, a state that Fox can't soully[sic] take the blame for, but they can certainly capitalize on.

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The poll was fielded from November 6 to 15, 2010 with a sample-size of 848 respondents. The margin of error for the full sample was 3.4%. The margin of error for the poll’s 616 self-reported voters is plus or minus 3.9%. It was conducted using the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®, a probability-based panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. Initially, participants are chosen scientifically by a random selection of telephone numbers and residential addresses. Persons in selected households are then invited by telephone or by mail to participate in the web-enabled KnowledgePanel®. For those who agree to participate, but do not already have Internet access, Knowledge Networks provides a laptop and ISP connection. More technical information is available at http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/ganp/reviewer-info.htm

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Looking at the frequency of misinformation among the consumers of various news sources, one striking feature is that substantial levels of misinformation were present in the daily consumers of all news sources. Even the daily consumers of news sources with the lowest levels of misinformation still included substantial numbers with misinformation. For each topic, the news source with the lowest level of misinformation among its daily consumers was as follows:

most economists who have studied it estimate that the stimulus legislation saved or created only a few jobs or caused job losses: MSNBC, 65% misinformed

among economists who have estimated the effect of the health reform law, more think it will increase the deficit: Public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), 38%


the bank bailout legislation (TARP) was passed and signed into law under Pres. Obama: MSNBC, 38%

the US economy is getting worse: Public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), 34%


the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts: MSNBC, 34%

the bailout of GM and Chrysler occurred under President Obama only: MSNBC, 32%


since January 2009 the respondent’s federal income taxes have actually gone up: MSNBC, 27%

it is unclear whether Obama was born in the US—or, Obama was not born in the US: Public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), 24%


when TARP came up for a vote, Democrats were opposed or divided: Fox News, 21%

when TARP came up for a vote, most Republicans opposed it: CNN, 28%


it was proven that the US Chamber of Commerce was spending foreign money to back Republicans: Fox News, 23%

most scientists think climate change is not occurring or views are divided evenly: MSNBC and public broadcasting (NPR or PBS), both 20%

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Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that:

most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 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)

These effects increased incrementally with increasing levels of exposure and all were statistically significant. The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it--though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.

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Daily watchers of network TV news broadcasts were 12 points higher in believing that TARP was signed into law by President Obama, and 11 points higher in believing that most Republicans oppose TARP.

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people have to remember how often they watched a news source

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questions posed were of topics more interesting to Democrats than Republicans

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some nasty Demorats might have claimed to actually be Republicans

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the organization itself might have deliberately falsified data to make Fox News look bad

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