It's Official: Fox Noise Viewers "Least Informed"

A recent independent survey on public affairs awareness levels has shown (big surprise here) that viewers of Fox Noise are the least informed people in the world (okay, the "in the world" is hyperbole) (if you are a Fox Noise viewer, go here).

A couple of weeks ago, the Pew Center released the results of its survey. Over 1500 adults were given a news quiz and also queried about the new sources they read, watch and listen to. Presenting a challenge to the reality-based community, the top scoring group were those who listed the Daily Show and Colbert Report amongst their daily viewing diet. Seventy-nine percent in that group demonstrated a high or moderate level of public events awareness. Rounding out the top three were consumers of major US newspaper websites (80%) and the News Hour (72%). Fox Noise viewers were at the bottom of the list (just a smidgen above the folk who watch the morning news shows) with 66% scoring low - to moderate and the lowest (35%) scoring high.

Nearly twice as many college grads and men scored in the high category as did non-grads and women. Independents had a higher percent of "high" scores than did Democrats, who had more high scores than Repubs. Northeast adults were the most well-informed regionally.

These findings comport with the 2003 World Public Opinion group's extended survey and study on misperceptions of the Iraq war. From their summary of the findings:

The polling, conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks, also reveals that the frequency of these misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals’ primary source of news. Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely.

You can take a shortened version of the News Quiz here (and don't come back if you get any wrong -- it is an absurdly easy quiz); and you can measure yourself against the political typology here.

(h/t to Revolt Today)