O’Reilly: misinforming again
O’Reilly is convinced that young Americans “have no idea what’s going on” because “they get their news form Jon Stewart” and other entertainers. Actually, Bill, the opposite is true. MediaMatters notes that
studies have shown that viewers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with John Stewart are consistently better informed about current events than consumers of other media, and Daily Show viewers are considerably better educated than viewers of The O'Reilly Factor. Further, consumers of Fox News in general have been found to be significantly more misinformed about current events than consumers of other mainstream media.
Nielsen Media Research shows that "Stewart's viewers are not only smart, but more educated than O'Reilly's." The Annenberg Public Policy Center observed:
"Daily Show viewers have higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers -- even when education, party identification, following politics, watching cable news, receiving campaign information online, age, and gender are taken into consideration."
I’m more worried about the older Americans who get their news from Faux News; they’re the ones who tend to be misinformed.