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." [more]
uh-oh!
you'll have to use the above link to read politifact's analysis. it cites several polls that don't put fox666 viewers at the bottom in "knowledge" or in being "informed."
but wait! stewart didn't say fox viewers are "less informed" or even "uninformed." he said they're "most consistently misinformed." there's a difference.
fox viewers may learn a lot from fox news. much of what they learn may be accurate. but they may also acquire a layer of false ideas that don't show up in poll questions about facts.
the polls that need to be studied are those that examine which media viewers are more likely to buy into the birther controversy or the death panel claim or the belief that the prez is a muslim/socialist/fascist or that bush intentionally let the 9/11 attacks happen or that gore claimed he invented the internet or that the UN and/or the federal reserve is/are part of an international conspiracy to take away our guns and our sovereignty or that global warming is a hoax meant to terrify us into handing america over to environmentalists or that liberals want to end our freedom and take our money or that saddam hussein hid WMD in iran, syria, or jordan, &c.
it ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. it's what you know that just ain't so.=========================================
— attributed to artemus ward, josh billings, mark twain, and will rogers
update 6/23
jon stewart responded to politifact by citing a long list of fox lies found on politifact.com. politifact has not exactly apologized, but they did post the list on their site with links to the stories, here.
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