Study: Some Viewers Were Misinformed by TV News
By BRIAN STELTER

News organizations can educate voters about public policy and economic conditions, but they can also misinform voters. As if to prove the point, a study released Friday found that Òsubstantial levels of misinformationÓ seeped out to the electorate of the United States at the time of the midterm elections this year.

The study was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a project that is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

According to the study, which can be reviewed online, in most cases, the more a person watched and read the news, the less likely they were to have been misled about the facts. But Òthere were however a number of cases where greater exposure to a news source increased misinformation on a specific issue,Ó the studyÕs authors wrote. In particular, they found that regular viewers of the Fox News Channel, which tilts to the right in prime time, were significantly more likely to believe untruths about the Democratic health care overhaul, climate change and other subjects.

The study found other cases where greater exposure to media meant greater misinformation on a subject. Regular viewers of MSNBC, which tilts to the left in prime time, were 34 percentage points more likely than non-viewers to believe Òthat it was proven that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was spending money raised from foreign sources to support Republican candidates.Ó Consumers of public broadcasting were 25 points more likely to believe the same.

But the study found many more instances that involved Fox News.

ÒAlmost dailyÓ viewers of Fox News, the authors said, were 31 points more likely to mistakenly believe that Òmost economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit;Ó were 30 points more likely to believe that Òmost scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring;Ó and were 14 points more likely to believe that Òthe stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts.Ó

They were also 13 points more likely to mistakenly believe Òthe auto bailout only occurred under Obama;Ó 12 points more likely to believe that Òwhen TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it;Ó and 31 points more likely to believe that Òit is not clear that Obama was born in the United States.Ó

The studyÕs authors continued, ÒThese effects increased incrementally with increasing levels of exposure and all were statistically significant. The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it Ñ though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.Ó

Asked for comment on the study, Fox News seemingly dismissed the findings. In a statement, Michael Clemente, who is the senior vice president of news editorial for the network, said: ÒThe latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ÔStudents Who Study The LeastÕ and being the ÔBest Party SchoolÕ Ð given these fine academic distinctions, weÕll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ÔresearchedÕ with.Ó