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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
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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