In her letter of April 29 Diane Williamson states that she will continue to be an adherent of FOX news.
She justifies this devotion on the basis of a single report that appeared on FOX, but not on several other major newscasts.
This justification would have been more convincing to those of us who are not admirers of FOX news if it had been supported by more than one news item.
It would be much more informative to compare dozens or even hundreds of news items that were broadcast by FOX and other news broadcasters to gain more meaningful insight into the biases of the various TV news channels.
I am sure that Ms. Williamson and other readers of the Record-Bee will find a report of the World Public Opinion Organization (at worldpublicipinion.org) to be of interest.
The views held by Americans on many news stories were evaluated.
The WPO is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, and it is funded by the Calvert Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The WPO found that although there is a disturbing amount of misinformation believed by many Americans, those who watched FOX news mostly or exclusively were significantly more misinformed on many issues than people who relied on other channels for their news.
Some of the topics that the FOX news adherents were most misinformed about included the scientific evidence of climate change and that President Obama was not born in the U.S. (apparently many of the people who believe that do not realize that Hawaii is one of our 50 states).
A high proportion of the FOXers are also ignorant about how the economy is doing (it is getting better, although not by much), about how the federal economic stimulus affected jobs (it did cause some increase and not a decrease) and how the new health care program will affect the national deficit.
The new program will not increase the deficit; it is likely to reduce it.
However, some people who relied heavily on MSNBC, NPR or PBS were misinformed about the role of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in supporting Republicans in the 2010 election.
The chamber did not use money raised from foreign sources for that purpose. And watchers of network news broadcasts were more likely to believe erroneously that TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) legislation was signed by Obama and that most Republicans are opposed to TARP.
Actually, that legislation was initiated by George W. Bush, and was supported by most Republicans.
All of this illustrates that it is unwise to rely on a single news source for information, particularly when that source caters to one”s biases.
Charles S. Nicoll
Lucerne
