Jon Stewart Lies About Fox News Viewers

Zoooma

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Long read but it fact checks Stewart and shows that he was wrong.
And anyone who says, "He's just a comedian," should realize that some people watch his show without watching any other news. After watching The Daily Show some believe they now know the Gospel Truth about the GOP and Fox, all thanks to someone's biased opinions. It's like reading Huffington Post or Daily Kos and believing that as gospel truth. Sadly, some people do. And because of this fact check, it should be clear that Stewart can't be trusted to be telling the truth. He's not just a comedian; when he made the comment that this article is based on, he was as dead serious as any political pundit can be.

"Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers? … Fox viewers, consistently, every poll."

Jon Stewart on Sunday, June 19th, 2011 in an interview on Fox News Sunday

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."

Wallace didn’t challenge Stewart’s assertion that Fox -- widely perceived as a conservative-leaning network -- produced more misinformed viewers. But we thought it was an assessment worth checking.

We found two polling organizations that have produced periodic "knowledge" surveys differentiated by the respondent’s frequent news sources. One is the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, and the other is worldpublicopinion.org, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

Let’s start with Pew’s findings.

Pew periodically studies media usage and public knowledge. They ask whether a respondent is a "regular" reader, viewer or listener of major print, television, radio and Internet news sources, and they ask a series of basic factual questions about news and public affairs to gauge how well-informed the respondent is.

After conferring with Pew researchers, we found three surveys since 2007 that shed some light on how informed Fox viewers are compared to consumers of other media. Here they are:

• February 2007 Political Knowledge Survey. Pew asked respondents 23 questions, such as who the vice president is, who the president of Russia is, whether the Chief Justice is conservative, which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives and whether the U.S. has a trade deficit. The ability to answer 15 of these questions correctly earned the respondent a place in the "high knowledge" category.

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
 
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Zoooma

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................. CONCLUSION

We should note that like this study, PolitiFact often uses the Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare trustees as credible sources, and we often query experts to come up with our rulings. We think there’s a difference between bestowing a False rating on an elected official -- whose job it is to know about public policy -- and calling an ordinary American "misinformed" for getting the exact same question "wrong." At the very least, these questions seem less clear-cut than asking who the vice president is.

For this reason, we believe that this study should carry less weight in analyzing Stewart’s comment.

So we have three Pew studies that superficially rank Fox viewers low on the well-informed list, but in several of the surveys, Fox isn’t the lowest, and other general-interest media outlets -- such as network news shows, network morning shows and even the other cable news networks -- often score similarly low. Meanwhile, particular Fox shows -- such as The O’Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity’s show -- actually score consistently well, occasionally even outpacing Stewart’s own audience.

Meanwhile, the other set of knowledge surveys, from worldpublicopinion.org, offer mixed support for Stewart. The 2003 survey strikes us as pretty solid, but the 2010 survey has been critiqued for its methodology.

The way Stewart phrased the comment, it’s not enough to show a sliver of evidence that Fox News’ audience is ill-informed. The evidence needs to support the view that the data shows they are "consistently" misinformed -- a term he used not once but three times. It’s simply not true that "every poll" shows that result. So we rate his claim False.


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...ewart-says-those-who-watch-fox-news-are-most/
 
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DontTreadOnMike

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4 days a week, (used to be 5) The Daily Show shows news clips from various organizations. It would take weeks and weeks to comb over all the examples of Fox News clips that have been shown on the DS that show misinformation, opinion veiled as fact, and downright lunacy.

The data indicates that "Fox isn't the worst but it's definitely not doing very well". If FOX was a two bit backwater station that nobody watched, then who would care. Sadly, given that they are the most watched TV news source, you'd think that they would want to inform their viewers better.

My favourite bit? Where we argue over semantics: Fox news viewers are frequently reported as being some of the most misinformed of the populous HOWEVER, not every study indicates that they are the most ill informed. Therefore, Fox news is the pinnacle of journalism.

Sad really.


And just a note: Despite the fact that Jon Stewart definitely spoke in hyperbole, his viewers ARE considerably better informed than Fox News. Why is that not itself, a discussion point in this thread?
 
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Harpuia

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I don't get how we are to admit somehow conservatives are super well-informed now because Fox News is anywhere between average to below average (slight above average if you are only on for O'Reilly), yet if you listen to stuff like NPR or PBS and should they ever make a blunder, it's "the stupid liberal media".

Make sense?
 
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chaz345

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Stewart is a comedian, so it is your problem if you take seriously what he says.

If the opinion based shows on Fox can be called news programs why can't Stewart's? It is a fact that many people see him as a valid news source which is really a sad testament about the intelligence of the mostly young,mostly liberal types that have that belief.
 
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Harpuia

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If the opinion based shows on Fox can be called news programs why can't Stewart's? It is a fact that many people see him as a valid news source which is really a sad testament about the intelligence of the mostly young,mostly liberal types that have that belief.

It didn't help that Fox News has had Glenn Beck for the last two years. He provides lots of entertainment but very little substance in the news area. The eye test tells me the Daily Show has more substance in news than Glenn Beck does.

One place where Glenn Beck does win over others is talking about history a lot though.
 
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If the opinion based shows on Fox can be called news programs why can't Stewart's? It is a fact that many people see him as a valid news source which is really a sad testament about the intelligence of the mostly young,mostly liberal types that have that belief.

Who said anything about Fox's opinion shows? The comment was about Fox News in general.

Those who see Stewart's blatently obvious comedy as valid news are as dillusioned as those who believe that Fox News is a valid source for news. Wallace said it himself that Fox news is an organization which shows the news from a conservative bias. Most who have been paying attention have know this for a decade, although it is nice to see Fox news admit their bias.
 
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DaisyDay

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Stewart is not a newsman, he's a comedian, for goodness' sake! To compare a comedy show to what is supposed to be a real news show is absurd - it just shows how pathetically bad the "real" news show is.
 
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chaz345

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Who said anything about Fox's opinion shows? The comment was about Fox News in general.

Those who see Stewart's blatently obvious comedy as valid news are as dillusioned as those who believe that Fox News is a valid source for news. Wallace said it himself that Fox news is an organization which shows the news from a conservative bias. Most who have been paying attention have know this for a decade, although it is nice to see Fox news admit their bias.

Fox's opinion shows are cited as proof of Fox News bias all the time.
 
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chaz345

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Stewart is not a newsman, he's a comedian, for goodness' sake! To compare a comedy show to what is supposed to be a real news show is absurd - it just shows how pathetically bad the "real" news show is.


No more absurd than citing O'Riley or Hannity as proof that Fox news show is biased.
 
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It didn't help that Fox News has had Glenn Beck for the last two years. He provides lots of entertainment but very little substance in the news area. The eye test tells me the Daily Show has more substance in news than Glenn Beck does.

One place where Glenn Beck does win over others is talking about history a lot though.

But he's not any more a news presenter than Stewart is. Thanks though you just completely proved my point. Neither Stewart or Beck is intended to be a news source. One is opinion based on the news and the other is comedy based on the news. That either is viewed by even one person as an actual news source is to me, a sad testament to our education system.
 
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Stewart's? It is a fact that many people see him as a valid news source which is really a sad testament about the intelligence of the mostly young,mostly liberal types that have that belief.

So people turn to a comedy program for news and that means they're not bright? Wow.

Who licked the red off your candy?
Ringo
 
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First of all he apologised for his mistake (plus he did not lie he was just miss informed which is different).

Second, a comedian on Comedy Central is not the same as hosts of shows put on a 24 hour news channel. One does comedy and one does news. You should hold up Fox to the same standards you seem to hold up a comedian, you might get better media in the USA in general.
 
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