Results of a preliminary study conducted by the Institute for the Dumbing Down of America (IDDA), Fox News Group has come out way ahead of any other television network news provider as having phenomenal success in creating misinformed, less intelligent human beings over the past ten years.
According to Dr. Bo Gusfindings, “folks who have been getting their news from shows such as The Glenn Beck Show, The O’Reilly Factor, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, and Hannity were less able to correctly answer simple third grade questions than those who got their news from alternative news sources.
One study participant, when asked if she thought global warming was a real threat stated robotically, “global warming is the biggest scam perpetuated on people.” (Points were deducted from her score for using perpetuated rather than perpetrated.) But moving on, this particular Fox News viewer then gave her reasons for why she thought global warming was a scam:
1. Right now it is so cold where I live that I can’t even go outside, and I live in Houston. Can you believe it snowed in Houston? In the winter? If snow is cold, it can’t be warm, right?
2. They say the ice at both poles is melting and making the oceans rise, but the oceans rise and fall all the time. It’s called tides.
3. Global warming people just want me to buy green products, but my favorite color is blue.
When Gusfindings was pressed as to why he thought adults who watched Fox News were becoming less intelligent, he cited several factors. “For one thing,” he said, “these viewers are being shown misinformation in the form of photos and stage props, such as blackboards and white boards, while simultaneously being told half truths and misinformation. What this does is confuse the Fox News viewer, who has to decide whether to listen to what is being told him or watch the visual aids. This type of news broadcast leads to a repressed thinking pattern caused by willing the viewer to do two things at one time.
For instance, on The Glenn Beck Show, Beck uses many visual aids to get his point across such as white boards, black boards, and giant note pads on easels. In one case, while misspelling the word “Oligarhy” on a blackboard, Beck was telling his viewing audience that America was turning into an “Oligarchy” and tying it in visually with words like ACORN Style Organization, Obama and Hidden Agenda, among others. Said Gusfindings, “this is a perfect example from which to gather our information for our studies.” After showing this particular video to the study participants, Gusfindings gave each of them a simple comprehension test to determine what they learned, and these are the results:
1. How do you spell Oligarchy? 100% answered “Oligarhy.”
2. What is a hidden agenda? 95% answered “true” that it was a practical joke played on the President by his children.
3. What is ACORN? Answers ranged from “I don’t know” to “why do they spell it with all capital letters?”
4. Who is Obama? 97% of the answers cannot be printed here, but suffice it to say that only the “N” word was spelled correctly.
In addition, Beck stages skits featuring things like dousing an actor on his show with supposed gasoline while impersonating scary things Obama might say, and then threatening to light a match to set the actor on fire. This type of subliminal thought transference leaves the viewer coming away from the images believing Obama to be a very scary and psychopathic leader who looks a lot like a white guy.
Gusfindings was asked what, if anything, can be done to reverse this unsettling trend of dumbing down America by these types of faux news channels. He had this to say, “short of tying these folks down and making them watch real news reports where a newscaster actually reports the news without injecting his or her two cents’ worth into the stories presented, and short of taking away viewers’ television sets altogether and making them actually sit down and read a newspaper, I’m afraid this trend will continue to escalate until the majority of Americans will only be able to communicate in bits and bites, and by bites, I do mean that literally.”
great points tcoop. you sound very rational and educated. In fact you sound like the exact opposite of all those average idiots in america. You must be a super genius.
Irrational, manipulative, loud mouthed and innappropriate are some words I would associate with FOX News. I am so appalled that they are calling themselves fair and balanced when they have the most irrational and racist people on air as their so called “leaders” of the news channel. Millions of people watch the show and what happens when you have an irrational leader spitting out propaganda to the average idiot of america, we get more idiots and worse.
Every single argument that woman said is a complete fallacy, fact, and she sounds like a white ignorant woman from the suburbs.. correct me if im wrong.
Momlee, you just proved the whole point to this article..lol Someone throws a fact in your face and yet you still blather on… lmaoo tff
Fox has been proven over and over again the propaganda and lies they use to further their agenda and the agenda of their lobbyist and friends!!! Do a little research on your own instead of having it spoon fed to yea like bananas!
Uh, yea… Al Gore is working to save the planet!
Cheers, good blog post.
hahaha – I like these guys, they are silly! Just kill one of them!
Suggesting that the alleged “exaggeration” of one scientist’s results discredits all the data is ridiculous. May as well discredit any new research of cellphones causing brain cancer (or poreventing Altzheimers) based on the bogus “research” done by Motorola in the late 80’s that allowed them to win a lawsuit, but did scarcely anything to further scientific knowledge. Let’s toss it all afterall they made it all up.
And BTW, coke IS an effective contraceptive. I didn’t read that on the internet. I learned it back in my pimp days of the early 80’s.
dave2181 wrote: “Don’t forget that boiling the frog alive thing.”
The “boiling the frog alive thing” is an urban legend. A falsehood. A lie. It takes about two minutes research to debunk that one.
But someone who believes that Faux Noise is providing a “fair and balanced” broadcast is obviously ready to believe the most obvious fantasies out there. Next thing he’ll be claiming that coke is an effective contraceptive because “he read it on the internet.”
Thanks Giggles. Can I call you Giggles, GG? You just made my point for me.
I’m gonna go fact some facts now and perhaps come up with some more proof that Fox News is indeed helping to dumb down America.
You know the problem is reality, Fox gives it while the rest ignore. Since the majority, if not all of the major news networks are liberal Democrats, who are completely out of touch with reality and refuse to face the facts, thus Dr. BO Gusfindings fit right in. You know until we fact the fact that we ALL need to take care of ourselves and not depend on anyone else it will neve get better. When you liberal idiots figure out that no one being productive does not feed any of us it just may be too late.
DAH! You dumbed down lib-tarts fell for this!!! Did you check the expext “Dr. Bo Gusfindings” bogus finding HA!!!
Honestly, I don’t care where I get my news from, I watch the news for news. I don’t give a darn about what their political beliefs are. But I was very angered at Fox News for their Mass Effect bull****.
Climate change, up or down, is not as cut and dried as either camp wants to make it. Besides evidence that a long warming event over 100,000 years ago gave way to the last, big ice age, you have to use the “evidence” both sides are using to prove/disprove the trend. Two things:
1)Weather data from the past century is hardly as accurate as scientists would like you to believe. In the old days, if “Farmer Jones” had a thermometer and a rain gauge, he could report data to the local weatherman (i.e. his good buddy) and be designated as an official weather collection point. Not a scientist living today can ascertain without a doubt that the information they’re using was collected properly or is unbiased. Garbage in, garbage out.
2)Even if the data were accurate, there is hardly enough of it (at present) to accurately forecast a trend. Face it, scientists are trying to project 50 years into the future with barely a 100 years worth of data. Crappy, unreliable, poorly maintained early 20th century instruments aside, that’s like trying to forecast Wednesday’s temperature range based only on Monday and Tuesday, while still claiming the weather started changing on Tuesday. That’s bullshit.
But, in order to understand the complexity of the modeling necessary, consider the fact that many complex chemical reactions have intermediate reactions, some of which are exothermic (heat up) and some that are endothermic (cool down). Depending on the stage of the overall reaction, the “environment” may be heating up, or cooling down at any particular point. The atmosphere is a stew of hundreds, if not thousands of potential reactions and side-reactions. Whether or not the overall environment is heating up or cooling down if anyone’s guess at this point. All we can be somewhat sure of is, it IS changing. But, how much and in what direction? Who knows. Only coninued research will clarify anything.
Until then, both sides should stand back to back, walk 50 paces, turn and blow each other’s ass off so the scientists can get some freaking work done.
The article that refuses to die returns once more from beyond the grave!
Good Lord. I’m hoping that J. Roberts is just attempting to poke humor at my humor. If not, (s)he just proved my point, unfortunately.
HA,HA,HA…WHO EVER WROTE THIS ARTICULE MUST BE THE LAST DUMB INDIVIDUAL IN THS PLANET…..
BYEEEEE.
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” (Adolph Hitler)
i have 3 letters for all of you…. pbs. =class
I think we’re going to lose Patti if we keep this up.
I’ve seen what happens when these back-and-forths get out of hand on the political forums , and it ain’t pretty.
I consider Brian and every GlossyNews contributor a friend and colleague, members of this wonderful community Brian has created; and while I may not see eye-to-eye with everyone, I respect your passion and commitment. Whatever side you’re on, it’s better than apathy. Anyway, I’m standing down.
Sorry, I was drunk when I wrote all that rot… I don’t even know what ‘ergo’ means. Like i speak portugeese and stuff! Ha! lol
And now that John is in hospital for his radish-induced hoe bashing, he isn’t news any more.
C’mon guys. I looked up Glossy and one of the definitions is: “lots of glossy and phony chatter” There was nothing in there about intellectual discourse. Can we please get back to the phony chatter?
If not, then I swear I’m only going to write stories from now on about fuzzy bunnies and cute chipmunks.
I don’t think that all news is “for profit” but I said “for profit news channels”. There are plenty of not for profit news agencies whose revenue is not based on advertising but rather fees based on listenership(?). Ergo, they have to attract listeners, not advertisers and they have to answer, financially, to the listeners not to advertisers. Was my point, however poorly I may have made it….
Controversy is not a necessary element of the news. The announcement of the groundbreaking of a new hospital need not spark partisan debate… it can just be an event.
News is inherently non controversial. It is people who interpret events who create the controversy.
Not too newsworthy though unless Martha was arrested for bashing John over the head with a hoe for planting his radishes in her garden.
“The real problem in the media is that For Profit news channels think that they only work when they get you ramped up or upset. They design stories around controversy purposely ignoring facts or blurring facts in order to upset the audience. If you spend any time listening to or reading news from legit not for profit news media, you usually get a fairly broad and balanced report.”
1. All media news is “for profit”.
2. All news is “designed”, it is set up to gain viewers.
Controversy is a necessary element in “news”.
—i.e. ‘John planted radishes vs. John broke presidence and
planted his radishes next to Martha’s lettuce.”
He still planted radishes, but now it is with a purpose.
“I know a lot of people think it was a tempest in a teapot, but it roiled the entire scientific community and did call into question the validity of the science underlying the argument for man-caused global warming. (Consider that the Copenhagen Summit just ended in chaos partly as an upshot of the leaked material from East Anglia.)”
Sagman, being a news junkie all these years, did you spend time reading the unedited emails that were all over the net?
If you did, then you would see that it didn’t “call into question the validity” of any science. It only showed a group of scientists emailing back and forth about a lot of petty internal squabbles and personal likes and dislikes with other scientists. They spent a lot of time pushing back and forth about who said what and how could it be said differently, depending on lots of scientific information that was or was not supporting the statement. There was never any authorized statement issued in any email.
These published emails were not official statements by any governing body with any effect on science at all.
As to the summit, the pre-press was full of the fact that nothing of global importance would be decided at this conference, quite literally months before the conference convened, and long before the emails became public.
Geez, Brian, who put the pepper in your mint?
I sorta thought we all finally simmered down on this one.
LOL
Dave – Couple good points in there, though some of the ‘missed stories’ didn’t resonate with me. I’m concerned about missing stories too, but for me it’s more about the erosion of the constitution, the looting of our national coffer to pay for massive unfunded bills, the corruption of lobby-driven pork crazy legistators and the crimes of the previous administration. I would tackle them myself, but first we’re going to need some resource.
Rev Mike said The real problem in the media is that For Profit news channels think that they only work when they get you ramped up or upset. They design stories around controversy purposely ignoring facts or blurring facts in order to upset the audience.
Fool! Are you trying to give away our entire business model!!! 🙂
Patti – Pointing out the Nobel like that won’t help. Climate Change deniers are as likely to also hate the latest winner of the prize.
Andrew… Andrew, Andrew, Andrew… Climate Change is not a matter of opinion. The global cooling thing is red herring. There was no scientific concensus on that, it was a lesser theory quickly discredited. The 1970s Global Cooling Myth.
Look… You guys have made me laugh (I mean that really) it was fun and I appreciate it. Don’t want to get too serious here. It was a fun post .
What weather do you want to talk about the one that is heating up or coolng down?
I’m bored with this. It’s not funny anymore.
Anyone wanna talk about the weather?
It is indeed sad, so many followers, trusting and believing that their idols can actually control the climate. It is a faith unmatched even by the prior belief in global cooling caused by CO2 previously expounded by old followers, who are now the new idols, with their new followers.
The followers have been misinformed by corrupted data processed by computer models that are at best inaccurate run by people swimming in lies and deception. I realize that the Medieval Warming Period is the bane of the realclimate/CRU people and the Oil, Gas and Nuclear power companies that fund the realclimate/CRU enterprise, but it did happen and it was global. Someday they will need to come to terms with it, when they do their minds will finally be free to think on their own.
The real problem in the media is that For Profit news channels think that they only work when they get you ramped up or upset. They design stories around controversy purposely ignoring facts or blurring facts in order to upset the audience. If you spend any time listening to or reading news from legit not for profit news media, you usually get a fairly broad and balanced report.
As Brian said, it is profit/market driven. The media have found a niche that works as far as profit goes and what incentives do they have to explore other options? The fact is that with 24 hour news stations, there really isn’t that much real news, so filler pieces become critical. When you realize the fillers are getting higher ratings than the real news, the real news begins to look more and more like the fillers/entertainment.
If you watch Headline News, you would see how much “news” there is in a day. About enough to fill 2 x 1 hour programs (am and pm) at the most. Gee, just like back when all we had was network tv.
The lite entertainment news we get these days is cheap and easy to do, kind of like plastic. Real news and journalism is steel and cast iron. News is made out of plastic for the same reason your car is.
Tiger Woods is the greatest example. There is absolutely NOTHING newsworthy about Tiger Woods that doesnt involve golf. But the news channels have hour after hour of programming to fill and anything is fair game.
~Rev Mike
I write here not as a partisan but as a news junkie for, God help me, almost fifty years.
If you limit the discussion to straight news programs (forget Hannity, Beck, Olbermann on MSNBC, others) and compare Fox’s evening news show, “Special Report” to the alphabets’ evening news, I think Baier does pretty well.
Baier (and Hume before him) tries to present both sides; if there’s news that makes Democrats look bad, he reports it; Republicans, same thing. I think The alphabets tend to omit or casually dismiss news that reflects poorly on the left.
Examples:
1. The ACORN scandal was/is a pretty big story, but in the weeks following the revelations, Charlie, Kate, and Brian said little, if anything, about it. In fact, Gibson was doing a radio interview about a week after the story blew up and was asked about ACORN. He said the story was news to him. This is not possible.
2. Climategate. I know a lot of people think it was a tempest in a teapot, but it roiled the entire scientific community and did call into question the validity of the science underlying the argument for man-caused global warming. (Consider that the Copenhagen Summit just ended in chaos partly as an upshot of the leaked material from East Anglia.)
My point: ABC, NBC, CBS completely-again, completely-ignored this major news story for weeks. I’d argue that if you got your news solely from Charlie, Katie, or Brian (Williams, not our Brian), you were very ill served.
Not trying to start a flame war here; just some observations.
Dave,
You wrote: “P.Beckert: Don’t forget that boiling the frog alive thing.”
Are you sure you want to use that as your argument that Beck isn’t completely nuts? You want to tell me that you believe Beck but you choose not to believe a man (Al Gore), who is the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, a man who is tirelessly campaigning to make this a better world for everyone? I have only one thing to say to you sir:
GET OFF MY POST! GET OFF MY POST! he he he
oooh looks like I hit a nerve
PS Davie boy, you wouldn’t know a paradigm if it asked to bite your ass.
Jeez, Davie boy, how do you ever find the time or wish to sleep at night?
Your worries are so — how can I say this nicely — one-dimensional?
You rant about controversies, truthers, sackings, lies, repercussions, radicals, thugs, scandals — as if you just landed on the Mayflower among a boat load of boiled frogs.
Learn to read at least one more point of view, so you don’t fall over for lack of balance.
As for Rather’s “phoney NG papers”, go look-see who phonied them up. Sometimes political dirty tricks don’t make it to the felony level, so they aren’t reported as loudly as illegally declared wars in Iraq, for example.
P.Beckert: Don’t forget that boiling the frog alive thing.
Anyway you call it satire I say it’s vicious. You want fertile ground? How about Al Goregate. What about CBS’s Dan Rather and the phoney National Guard papers.
What doesn’t the MSM report on let’s see…The Van Jones controversy. A communist (his words, not mine) and a truther. Hardly a mention of it anywhere until he was sacked. Anita Dunn and her favorite philsopher Mao. Again same. Climategate has been really slow out of the box. Climategate the story about whether global warming is human caused and the fudged data. That one. How about Joe Lieberman’s wife was threatened with repercussions is another one. They meant to distroy her reputation if Joe didn’t go along. He did. Radicals in the white house. How about all the money GE is going to make on cap and trade. How about Andy Stern the person that visits the white house quite frequently. How about the union thugs that beat up a t-shirt vendor at a tea party. How about the ACORN scandal. That took forever for the MSM to break that story.
Yes, Momlee, we all have remotes and choices. That goes for you as well. Perhaps you could choose a different site from which to get your daily dose of satire.
And Dave, tell me what other “real” news reporters besides Beck threaten to kill people on a regular basis on the air during their “newscasts” either by strangulation, setting them ablaze with gasoline, hitting them over the head with a shovel, or as seen in one of the many Beck GOMP videos on YouTube, screaming that he wants to not only vaporize France, but also the caller himself. Yeah, Beck is a real Walter Cronkite.
Hell, Beck himself has said that he is not a journalist. You want to get your news from this self-proclaimed rodeo clown, then that’s your prerogative, but don’t jump down my ass for jumping on the satire bandwagon against him and those who honestly believe his crap. All Beck is to me is fertile ground. period.
Dumbing down people? We all have a remote when we watch TV. Choices are available and frankly I’m a Fox fan. Many of us are informed not only from TV but we also read many papers, etc. Many avenues of news tip-toe around the truth but Fox nails down facts. They are fair and balanced and ask questions that appeal to me. I matter and have an open mind. Millions of us must be dumb because their ratings are thru the roof. They make a difference…
Ah thunk this is a lott of poo. Ah watch Fox all the time an look what its dun fer me!
Seriously though- good article and I think what Brian says is pretty right on.
Dave makes some interesting points there. I’d expand it to say it’s not just the left but EVERYONE across the spectrum that take emotional positions against those they disagree with. The libertarians and tea partiers are not exactly known for the civility of their rhetoric. The Bush administration took very real actions to damage those who didn’t agree with them. Rush attacks people on both sides of the aisle for speaking out against him.
Obviously we would be a better society without all the Octomom, Speidi, Palin and balloon boy coverage, but those are free-market stories and demand drives the narrative in this business. We won’t hammer it if people don’t reward us financially. But what are the “real” news stories MSM should be covering?
That’s the problem! The real news report and real news casters aren’t actually reporting on the news that concerns real people. I think for a lot of people, they see their favorite news channels as informative and entertaining. At least that was the paradigm. But the fact that most of the MSM isn’t investigating or accurately reporting on some really important newsworthy events is turning people away and they are turning to FNC and Beck which is reporting it and in a way that most people find compelling and accurate. I would conclude from this that it is the majors that are creating this shift more than Beck. If MSM is so afraid of Beck they might try resorting to a more honest dialogue. But that would be “selling out” to their cause. One thing I have seen is the vindictive nature of the left and they will try to destroy anyone that disagres with even a single tenet of their cause. Maybe that’s you too.