One can learn a lot from ‘fake’ news

April 16, 2007

Three years ago, there were a few interesting studies measuring public awareness when it came to current events. The National Annenberg Election Survey found that those who watched “The Daily Show” were the best informed news consumers, while a study from the Program on International Policy Attitudes found that Fox News viewers were the least informed. This surprised, well, no one.

As it turns out, very little has changed — those who watch news that claims to be fake fare better than those who watch news is fake.

Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don’t know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

But here’s one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what’s going on — who were able to identify major public figures, for example — were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news.

These sound like the kind of results that should humiliate Fox News, but I suspect it won’t matter too much. The network isn’t about informing the public, it’s about promoting a political agenda. Of course those who receive their news from FNC are going to be confused and uninformed; the network’s broadcasts are about marching orders and talking points. There’s hardly any “reporting” at all.

Regardless, while the Fox News angle to the Pew Research Center’s report is probably the most entertaining, let’s not overlook the more serious overarching point of the survey: Americans have countless ways to learn about current events, but we remain a woefully ignorant bunch.

From the executive summary:

Since the late 1980s, the emergence of 24-hour cable news as a dominant news source and the explosive growth of the internet have led to major changes in the American public’s news habits. But a new nationwide survey finds that the coaxial and digital revolutions and attendant changes in news audience behaviors have had little impact on how much Americans know about national and international affairs.

On average, today’s citizens are about as able to name their leaders, and are about as aware of major news events, as was the public nearly 20 years ago. The new survey includes nine questions that are either identical or roughly comparable to questions asked in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2007, somewhat fewer were able to name their governor, the vice president, and the president of Russia, but more respondents than in the earlier era gave correct answers to questions pertaining to national politics.

One in three Americans don’t know who the Vice President is. One in four don’t know that Democrats now run the House. One in three can’t name their governor. Four in five can’t name the Secretary of Defense. Two in three don’t know that there’s a difference between Sunni and Shia.

The poll asked 1,502 respondents 23 fairly straightforward questions that, I suspect, nearly all of you would get right. Eight answered all 23 correctly in the survey. Not eight percent; eight people.

This has been a pet issue of mine for a very long time, so forgive the rant, but I strongly believe that an uninformed electorate creates a dysfunctional democracy. As Digby put it a while back, “We simply cannot adequately govern ourselves if a large number of us are dumb as posts and vote for reasons that make no sense.”

I’m obviously engaged in politics, and if you’re reading this, you are too. Not everyone shares our interests, and that’s fine. For that matter, most people are busy with their daily lives, and don’t have time to read eight newspapers a day. That’s fine, too.

But our system relies on a certain level of sophistication among the public, and there’s ample evidence, including this new Pew study, that we’re just not at that level.

It’s never been easier for Americans to get informed. Yes, some of the blame should go to charlatans like Fox News. And yes, it certainly doesn’t help when the nation is burdened by a White House that intentionally confuses Americans for political gain.

But at a certain point, people have to some making excuses and start taking some responsibility for having a clue. When 31% of Americans don’t know who the Vice President is, it undermines our political system.

Turning off Hannity and turning on Stewart would be a good start to turning things around.

i know it sounds kind of radical, but shouldn’t people be able to pass a current events test before they’re allowed to vote? sometimes i’m glad that the rate of voter participation is so low in this country. it could be worse!

  • Does watching Fox News make people ignorant, or do ignorant people simply prefer Fox News? (Y’know, like how people prone to get lung cancer crave cigarettes….) Either way, Fox News has an obligation to un-dumben its audience, unless it likes them that way.

    FWIW, I got a 9 out of 9 on the PEW quick quiz, but I had to guess at some, like the exact amount of the minimum wage hike.

  • A part of this picture that needs some serious research is “the Paradox of the 30-something percent.” Why is it that roughly the same percentage of the population who are the bedrock of support for the president, are listed as Republicans and support the war at all costs is also roughly the same percentage of the population who also has no clue as to what is going in the world?

  • Eight answered all 23 correctly in the survey. Not eight percent; eight people.

    Meanwhile, I would bet almost any amount of money that if you surveyed 1,500 random adults, most than just eight of them would be able to tell you the last three American Idol winners …

    But our system relies on a certain level of sophistication among the public, and there’s ample evidence, including this new Pew study, that we’re just not at that level.

    You’re 100% correct, but the $64,000 question is:

    Wat makes anyone think our government wants an informed electorate?

    Seems to me that the government wants us all to be distracted with stupid reality TV, Madonna’s children, the death of not-so-attractive model, or other such tripe. It allows them to do whatever the hell they want without much oversight.

    And unfortunately, that goes for both parties.

  • I noticed in the poll that about the same percentage as support Bush in other polls don’t know who the vice-president is in this poll. Coincidence? Doesn’t seem likely.

  • Another really sad part of the poll was that Limbaugh listeners scored higher than NPR listeners. I am not surprised, considering NPR employs folks like Juan Williams and Steve Inchcreep. And it says something about the fairly recent changes made at NPR (personally I think a lot of the changes were made so that many of their shows would come across like the Good Morning America and Today shows–and one can see how well the audiences of THOSE shows did on the poll, near the bottom). One big race to the bottom.

  • Actually that would be O’Reilly listeners doing better than NPR, and Limbaugh listeners only marginally worse than NPR.

  • It’s not just FoxNews. People watch their local news or CNN and think they’re getting the news. They’re informed, just not on the important things.

    I bet none of those 23 questions involved Anna Nicole’s corpse or Britney Spears’s hair or that guy on American Idol who has everyone riled up.

  • Fox News has an obligation to un-dumben its audience, unless it likes them that way.
    Comment by Grumpy

    Whaddaya mean, “unless?” 😉

    Since the late 1980s, the emergence of 24-hour cable news as a dominant news source

    Is there any actual EVIDENCE of this? Ratings appear to indicate just the opposite – that on a head-to-head basis (i.e. the “news half-hour”), more people watch “traditional” sources” than CNN, FOX, or MSNBC. How do you determine that cable is “dominant” – simply because it’s on 24/7?

    And how do you compare the network anchor format to the godawful crap that pollutes my cable every night (Lou Dobbs, Wolf Blitzer, Larry King, Bill O’Reilly).

    And yes, I do get my news from Lehrer, Stewart and Colbert. Haven’t watched anything else in years.

  • Grumpy’s on the something. If you look at the poll results, those watching Fox are among the least educated. My bet is that they seek out Fox because of the WWF-like theatrics – they’re not looking to be informed.

  • Perhaps they should put a warning label at the bottom of the screens for any 24 Hours News Net.

    “Warning: Regular viewings may cause Ignorance and Stupidity”

  • You might want to link back to the actual study as opposed to the NYT spin on the study. If you did that, you’d find that FOX News viewers were about as informed as the average American, not worse.

    Also, the study doesn’t even mention MSNBC, so the four people who watch Keith Olbermann weren’t available, I guess.

  • There used to be a great little catfish place a couple of towns from here — just a dump of a roadhouse on a Florida backroad, but it served ineffable catfish. The TV up in one corner of the ceiling was always on, but the good-ol’-boy regulars would jump to turn the channel if ANYTHING in the least informative — even the dumbest quiz show — came on. They tolerated only pure entertainment — cartoons, dance shows — whatever had no whiff of news or information.

    I’ve often wondered what percentage of the U.S. population lives in that mode.

  • Grumpy’s on the something. If you look at the poll results, those watching Fox are among the least educated. My bet is that they seek out Fox because of the WWF-like theatrics – they’re not looking to be informed.

    Comment by MadLad — 4/16/2007 @ 11:42 am
    ~~~~~
    And by the same token, might not the people who frequently watch Stewart & Colbert be better informed in the first place & not exclusively because they tune into those 2 shows ?

  • “I’ve often wondered what percentage of the U.S. population lives in that mode.”

    Obviously the floor would be around 32%, but based on my experience I would say that number well exceeds 50% and might even approach 70%.

  • I tried to do the survey. I followed the links to something that looked like it, but questions of fact were mixed in with approve/disapprove and questions like that, so I wasn’t sure. I did my best to not scroll down to the answers and/or cover them up. I got at least two wrong. I guessed on a multiple choice question that close to 4,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq (the last number I remember reading was over 3,000, and who knows how long ago that was… but apparently my estimation was too pessimistic). I also thought that an anti-surge resolution had passed. In hindsight, I don’t know where I got that idea, but that’s what I thought. And there were a couple questions that I wouldn’t have been totally sure of, but I think my educated guesses would have turned out to be correct. (For example, I know that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are both Democratic Congressional leaders, but I might have strained my memory for a minute to figure out which was house and which was Senate.)

    Just my two cents.

  • OK, my question is this…

    How many of the smart people don’t vote? And how many of the stupid people? If the ratio of smart to stupid voters could be altered, maybe we could get somewhere.

    I doubt if we can raise the overall intelligence level much, it seems to be locked in a downward trend.

  • “And by the same token, might not the people who frequently watch Stewart & Colbert be better informed in the first place & not exclusively because they tune into those 2 shows ?”

    Those who are better informed likely tune into Stewart and Colbert simply because they are better informed (and need the comic relief to keep their sanity).

  • I’d like to know how many news sources respondents look at, and how much time they spend reading. My guess is that Jon Stewart’s viewers cover a wide variety and/or several which go into some depth. CB’s coverage of many sources, often with background the rest of us don’t keep track of, is a healthy chunk of news each day. Such people turn to Stewart, not for information, but for what it is: amusement, amusement which often wouldn’t be amusing except for already knowing what he’s joking about.

    Fux Snooze, on the other hand, draws xenophobic, ignorant yahoots who very probably have no other source of news and don’t want one. The TeeVee is just there as a sort of pacifier, a soma substitute. They have it on for reinforcement of their creepy belief systems. Also it gives them the steady jolt of scare stories and tsk-tsking that used to be provided by the village widows. And the kind of Coulterish zingers which can occasionally draw a “woo-wee!” from the village idiots.

  • The analysis is off, I think. It isn’t that people who watch The Daily Show become more knowledgeable but rather that people who know more about public affairs tend to watch The Daily Show.

  • Re #19, Great catch, Ohioan. I loved the line, “It’s a lot cheaper to hire thumbsuckers and pundits than actually have bureaus and reporters.”

    This is going to be a great show, I’m definitely going to watch it.

  • those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news.

    Poor morning news programs and local television news, so poor they’re now compared with Faux. Someone is surprised by this?

    let’s not overlook the more serious overarching point of the survey: Americans have countless ways to learn about current events, but we remain a woefully ignorant bunch.

    My good friend “Former Dan” and I were talking about this yesterday, and he said that as a Canadian, he has always been amazed at the lack of knowledge and pure ignorance that is not only demonstrated by many Americans he has met, but that the ignorance is treated as something to be proud of.

    Unfortunately, it’s not “new” news. There isn’t a decade in the history of the country where those with IQs higher than ambient air temperature haven’t been complaining about the majority of morons. Back in 1924, during the “Scopes Monkey Trial” circus, H.L. Mencken got it entirely right with a statement that only becomes more accurate as the years pass:

    “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

  • Reminding me, Tom, of my fave Mencken quote of all time:
    “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” —July 26, 1920, H.L. Mencken in The Evening Sun.

  • You might want to link back to the actual study as opposed to the NYT spin on the study. If you did that, you’d find that FOX News viewers were about as informed as the average American, not worse.

    First off, the NYT piece does a good job of citing the correlation without making assumptions about cause. They say that those who performed better were also more likely to watch The Daily Show and Colbert. That’s an accurate statement; no spin.

    Mostly, though, you’re right that Fox viewers’ knowledge matched that of average Americans, which is a sad comment on Americans’ knowledge of important events and people.

    That local news viewers were just as bad tells you a lot about the state of news programs in the US. There was a study of news coverage about a local race where I live, and they found that the local TV news shows devoted far more time to the race than they did to issues that were the focus of the race. Thus, viewers knew a lot about who was running and the respective charges of mud-slinging, but nothing about where the candidates stood on major problems that they would face if successful. Disgraceful.

  • I took the survey. In the first place, it didn’t have 23 questions; I think there were eight. In the second, it was poorly designed. I’m an extremely well-informed news consumer, and I only placed at the 60th percentile, which is absurd. I got dinged twice because I didn’t realize the Senate had passed minimum-wage legislation (I knew the House had); I didn’t think they had enough Dem votes in the Senate for that. I know you’re right that the American public is very poorly informed, I’m just saying this survey wasn’t a good measure.

  • Ok, I just saw on the Pew page that the online version is much shorter than the one used in the study. So why the heck did they not provide the full version???

  • Hey, I got all 9 correct and I don’t watch *any* TV (unless you count the clips to which a link is sometimes posted here)! I get almost all my news from Carpetbagger, Think Progress, TPM (and its spawn) and, if the time permits, the IraqSlogger. Round it off with NYT, though I don’t pay as much attention to it as I used to before my son steered me here.

    I don’t know about others, but I’m much better at absorbing info visually, not aurally, so reading works much better for me than listening to the radio or TV.

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