Another ridiculous poll says Fox viewers are the dumbest, but Glenn set out on radio this morning to prove otherwise. The study, conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University, found that NPR listeners were the most informed while FOX News viewers were at the bottom, even falling behind people who claim to not watch any news programming. The participants were judged based on answers to a series of domestic and international questions.
The study concluded:
… that media sources have a significant impact on the number of questions that people were able to answer correctly. The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 domestic questions correctly — a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all.
On the other hand, if they listened only to NPR, they would be expected to answer 1.51 questions correctly; viewers of Sunday morning talk shows fare similarly well. And people watching only The Daily Show with Jon Stewart could answer about 1.42 questions correctly.
The Blaze noted that the methodology oversampled Republicans “to get a better estimate of the Republican voting process,” but also increased the Republican margin of error.
What were some of the questions?
1) To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in removing Hosni Mubarak?
2) How about the opposition groups in Syria? Have they been successful in removing Bashar al-Assad?
3) Some countries in Europe are deeply in debt, and have had to be bailed out by other countries. To the best of your knowledge, which country has had to spend the most money to bail out European countries?
4) There have been increasing talks about economic sanctions against Iran. What are these sanctions supposed to do?
5) Which party has the most seats in the House of Representatives right now?
6) In December, House Republicans agreed to a short-term extension of a payroll tax cut, but only if President Obama agreed to do what? (Open-Ended)
7) It took a long time to get the final results of the Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates. In the end, who was declared the winner? (Open-Ended)
8) How about the New Hampshire Primary? Which Republican won that race? (Open-Ended)
9) According to the figures, about what percentage of Americans are currently unemployed? (Open-Ended)
Not convinced that FOX viewers were the least informed, Glenn invited a fan to answer the questions and unsurprisingly, he was able to give the right answers.
