Profs Tell Fox News: Stop Making Viewers Dumber

Need any more proof that Fox News is actually making its viewers dumber? Look no further than the latest study out of the University of Maryland.

Fox’s fake news program has actually managed to convince 49 percent of viewers that income taxes have gone up since Obama became president. 56 percent of viewers believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout. And 63 percent of Fox News viewers continue to believe Obama  may not have been born in the United States.

All of these things are false. What else is false? The idea that climate change isn't real. But that's exactly the idea Fox News reporters are required to spread, Media Matters revealed late last month with a shocking leaked memo.

Change.org's Environment blog has the rundown on the environmentalist response here. In the education community, professors are speaking out against Fox News and calling them on their falsehoods.

After a Fox News correspondent accurately reported that the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization said 2000-2009 was "on track to be the warmest [decade] on record,” Fox News’ managing editor Bill Sammon informed his staff: "...we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question." However, that just ain’t true.

Professors like Dan Kennedy, an assistant professor of journalism at Northeastern University, have spoken out in the media criticizing Fox News' underhanded tactics. "The real obligation of journalists is to help their audience understand that the scientific community is almost unanimous that the climate is changing, that human activity is a major cause and that voluminous amounts of data support that view," he told TechNewsWorld.

"I don't know of any scientist who would say that the planet is not warming," John Abraham, an associate professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn, said as well.

Why should we care if the American public is getting dumber? Because it affects elections. Ignorant people elect other ignorant people who make ignorant decisions at the expense of the country.

Previous studies by PIPA as well as NBC/Wall Street Journal have already found the same results. But while this information has been sporadically reported on by news programs such as MSNBC, the appropriate question is: Why isn’t this being reported on over and over again by Fox News’ competitors until viewers get the point? Doesn’t it make them squirm with disgust that Fox News is recklessly debasing such an important American liberty as freedom of the press?

Clearly Fox News is not delivering a quality product--the news. Stand with professors who have spoken out against Fox News and join the effort to get Bill Sammon fired:  sign this Change.org petition.

Photo Credit: nattu via Flickr