Jimmy Zuma TucsonSentinel.com

In the first election since the Citizens United decision, misinformation played a central role. That’s the finding of a new study, Misinformation and the 2010 Election, from the University of Maryland’s World Public Opinion. Voters believe they heard more lies than in past elections. Researchers found voters were also influenced by the lies they didn’t catch.

The bad news for Fox News viewers is that merely watching the channel appears to be toxic. Most voters believed a few whoppers during the 2010 election cycle. But daily watchers of Fox News believed more misinformation than everyone else.

Are Fox viewers simply people who watch the station to reinforce misinformed views they already have?

“No,” says Clay Ramsay, lead researcher for the project. “Even Democratic voters who watched Fox News were more misinformed than others.”

“Fox displays a particular pattern of misinformation. The more you watch the more inaccurate your views.”

While all cable news earns some criticism from Ramsay, “Fox displays a particular pattern of misinformation. The more you watch the more inaccurate your views.”

It's an interesting article, and the original study is included through the link. What do you guys think about it?

Read the full article at :  http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/121610_fox_misinformation

Fox News Responds (Quoted from Huffington Post)

UPDATE: Fox News senior vice president for news Michael Clemente has responded to the study which found that his network's viewers are more misinformed about American political issues than any other channel. In a statement to the New York Times' Brian Stelter, Clemente disparaged the University of Maryland, where the study was done.

"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," Clemente said.

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

Going over the study... a lot of the questions asked... aren't really "true or false" things.

Like "Did the stimulus legislation gain or lose jobs".

Furthermore, pretty much ALL of the questions are democratically biased... as in few are questions Liberals would get wrong vs Conservatives.

I also find in intersting that 44% of the country isn't sure Obama was born in the US according to their report as well.  That's much higher then I remember that number being, which brings up sampling issues.

Seems like a report specifically tailored to get the results it got.  Otherwise you'd put in a bunch of stuff Liberals are more likely to get wrong like "Did Sarah Palin say she could see Russia from her house."

I still haven't seen Mr. Hussein's birth certificate!

Alright, so what kind of questions would you ask?

Stuff like "Did Sarah Palin say she could see Russia from her house.", "Were their WMD's found in Iraq", 

stuff like that.   "Did Ron Paul say that he thought segregation should be put back into place" would be another good one.

I wouldn't be surprised if Fox News was number 1.  I'd be surprised if they weren't in fact... however this study is pretty blatantly onesided.

44% is a particularly high numner.  Last I saw it was... like 15% I believe.  At 44% he may as well give permission for people to verify the actual full records... not that I actually think the number is that high.  Which is why I think there is probably a sampling bias.

EDIT: Or not, guess a recent CNN poll shows that 58% of people have their doubts about his citizenship...

Go figure.

Hmm fair enough, counter it with left-wing talking points. I am curious, however, to see how you would answer the WMD question.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/

I can't say the results of the study surprise me much because voters are generally uniformed about political issues, but the level of misinformation is concerning. There is a difference between not knowing an answer and believing a wrong answer to be true.

Does this surprise anyone?