New research from the University of Maryland shows that viewers of Fox News were more misinformed about factual questions than any other news audience during the 2010 midterm elections. No surprise there, I guess. But here’s the breakdown on one particular piece of misinformation:
Overall, heavy Fox viewers were the most uninformed about this. But only slightly. With the exception of the MSNBC audience, every other audience was almost equally uninformed. The only exception was daily viewers of Keith and Rachel, and even there an astonishing 64% of viewers basically thought the stimulus was worthless.
I don’t happen to believe that communication and messaging are as critical as the press sometimes makes them out to be, but something sure went cockeyed here. One way or another, the White House and congressional Democrats utterly failed to make a case that the stimulus bill did the economy any good at all. That’s obviously a tough sell in a high-unemployment environment, but still. Complete, utter failure. It’s astonishing.