Bill O'Reilly

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There's a reason FoxNews viewers score the absolute worst in surveys on public knowledge.

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Do you have a source, or is this one of those "it's ok to make up facts because it supports the liberal media agenda" things?

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are you actually challenging someone to provide a random sample of 10 FoxNews viewers and a random sample of 10 NPR viewers and quizzing them on current political events? are you actually arguing that the NPR viewers would do worse?

or perhaps you are arguing that Comedy Central viewers are douches who don't get the real story.

[cbfair]

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There's a reason FoxNews viewers score the absolute worst in surveys on public knowledge.

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Do you have a source, or is this one of those "it's ok to make up facts because it supports the liberal media agenda" things?

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you can start here. Page 15 (of the pdf) has some interesting graphics.

Here's a quote from page 14 (of the pdf) introducing the graphics.
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The table below shows this clearly. Listed are the breakouts of the sample according to the frequency of the three key misperceptions (i.e. the beliefs that evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq) and their primary news source. Fox News watchers were most likely to hold misperceptions—and were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three.

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[theghost]

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There's a reason FoxNews viewers score the absolute worst in surveys on public knowledge.

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Do you have a source, or is this one of those "it's ok to make up facts because it supports the liberal media agenda" things?

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Source

From the Washington Post:

Fact-Free News

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, October 15, 2003; Page A23

Ever worry that millions of your fellow Americans are walking around knowing things that you don't? That your prospects for advancement may depend on your mastery of such arcana as who won the Iraqi war or where exactly Europe is?

Then don't watch Fox News. The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong.

Researchers from the Program on International Policy Attitudes (a joint project of several academic centers, some of them based at the University of Maryland) and Knowledge Networks, a California-based polling firm, have spent the better part of the year tracking the public's misperceptions of major news events and polling people to find out just where they go to get things so balled up. This month they released their findings, which go a long way toward explaining why there's so little common ground in American politics today: People are proceeding from radically different sets of facts, some so different that they're altogether fiction.

In a series of polls from May through September, the researchers discovered that large minorities of Americans entertained some highly fanciful beliefs about the facts of the Iraqi war. Fully 48 percent of Americans believed that the United States had uncovered evidence demonstrating a close working relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Another 22 percent thought that we had found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And 25 percent said that most people in other countries had backed the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein. Sixty percent of all respondents entertained at least one of these bits of dubious knowledge; 8 percent believed all three.

The researchers then asked where the respondents most commonly went to get their news. The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were "the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions." Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three. Over at CBS, 71 percent of viewers fell for one of these mistakes, but just 15 percent bought into the full trifecta. And in the daintier precincts of PBS viewers and NPR listeners, just 23 percent adhered to one of these misperceptions, while a scant 4 percent entertained all three.

Now, this could just be pre-sorting by ideology: Conservatives watch O'Reilly, liberals look at Lehrer, and everyone finds his belief system confirmed. But the Knowledge Network nudniks took that into account, and found that even among people of like mind, where they got their news still shaped their sense of the real. Among respondents who said they would vote for George W. Bush in next year's presidential race, for instance, more than three-quarters of the Fox watchers thought we'd uncovered a working relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda, while just half of those who watch PBS believed this to be the case.

Misperceptions can also be the result of inattention, of course. If you nod off for just a nanosecond in the middle of Tom Brokaw intoning, "U.S. inspectors did not find weapons of mass destruction today," you could think we'd just uncovered Hussein's nuclear arsenal. So the wily researchers also controlled for intensity of viewership, and concluded that, "in the case of those who primarily watched Fox News, greater attention to news modestly increases the likelihood of misperceptions." Particularly when that news includes hyping every false lead in Iraq as the certain prelude to uncovering a massive WMD cache.

One question inevitably raised by these findings is whether Fox News is failing or succeeding. Over at CBS, the news that 71 percent of viewers hold one of these mistaken notions should be cause for concern, but whether such should be the case at Fox because 80 percent of their viewers are similarly mistaken is not at all clear. Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and the other guys at Fox have long demonstrated a clearer commitment to changing public policy than to reporting it, and an even clearer commitment to reporting it in such a way as to change it.

Take a wild flight of fancy with me and assume for just a moment that one major goal over at Fox is to ensure Bush's reelection. Surely, anyone who believes that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were in cahoots, that we've found the WMD and that Bush is revered among the peoples of the world -- all of these known facts to nearly half the Fox viewers -- is a good bet to be a Bush voter in next year's contest. By this standard -- moving votes into Bush's column and keeping them there -- Fox has to be judged a stunning success. It's not so hot on conveying information as such, but mere empiricism must seem so terribly vulgar to such creatures of refinement as Murdoch and Ailes.

[KneeCo]

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But at the same time, is usually pretty smart on his subjects. Obviously it isn't just him, he has to have a terrific research team that helps him know what he does. But, his facts are usually pretty well right, his opinions and arguments are based on evidence, and he does a good job (though loud and arrogant) of destroying other people's fallacies.

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This is flat untrue and frankly disappointing to read. Let me clear on this point, this isn't a matter of political disposition, this is a matter of fact. Saying the O'Reilly's arguments are sound and based on reliable evidence is factually incorrect.

O' Reilly constantly lies, makes arguments that have no basis in logic and is notorious for getting the facts wrong. He often (very often!) simply makes things up on his show if he thinks they will help his cause.

Also, his arguments are full of logical fallacies (most obviously of the ad hominem and poisoning the well variety, but many other ones as well). If I were a getting a masters in philosophy, I could easily write a thesis just on logical fallacies in one month of 'The Factor'.

This report from CBC (can watch in whole online), contains some "classic" O'Reilly. My favorite moment is when he not only makes up a statistic which is false, he also makes up a non-existent publication and names it as the source.

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I watched it and thought the entire segment was hilarious. Him and Stewart were clearly playing off each other and they did a great job in putting together an entertaining segment. He may be a blow hard but this interview is not reason in itself for saying he needs to lighten up.

[Fratony]

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I watched it and thought the entire segment was hilarious. Him and Stewart were clearly playing off each other and they did a great job in putting together an entertaining segment. He may be a blow hard but this interview is not reason in itself for saying he needs to lighten up.

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There should be a spinoff of PTI (ESPN sports show) where Stewart and O'Reily argue their respective points against each other daily, thats entertainment.

[siccjay]

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There should be a spinoff of PTI (ESPN sports show) where Stewart and O'Reily argue their respective points against each other daily, thats entertainment.

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Great idea. I would definitely watch this.

[thatpfunk]

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There should be a spinoff of PTI (ESPN sports show) where Stewart and O'Reily argue their respective points against each other daily, thats entertainment.

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Great idea. I would definitely watch this.

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If they could both reign it in to be civil and fun it would be an amazing show.

[canis582]

Classic O'Reilly

[Xelent]

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There should be a spinoff of PTI (ESPN sports show) where Stewart and O'Reily argue their respective points against each other daily, thats entertainment.

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Great idea. I would definitely watch this.

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If they could both reign it in to be civil and fun it would be an amazing show.

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I think that is the problem. It is a good idea in theory, but on PTI, they are at least on the same wave length and can agree on lots of topics. O'Reilly would eventually jump over the desk at Stewart. And anyone that says the Daily Show isn't political or doesn't have a political agenda is flat out stupid.