faux news seems to be harping on the fact that some poll (maybe reputable, who knows) shows that 49% of the people are watching them. i can’t seem to find the poll but i’m sure he wouldn’t distort it (well, maybe he would) since he could easily be proven wrong. i’ll update the post when i find it.
however, here is the reason that i started this post in the fist place. i was dumbfounded when i heard about the poll. how on earth could fox news be the most watched news channel? how could they be thought the most trusted, the most fair, the most balanced? my husband helped me to see the nuance of the situation.
sure, they may have cornered a larger share of people watching but if you give it more thought why is that share larger? my husband said, and i agree, that they have a large block of viewers who only watch fox. they don’t turn to any other news outlet because they get the rhetoric laid out in a way that is exactly what they want to hear. they don’t have to go anywhere else. the republican narrative is laid out right their for them.
now, liberals on the other hand tend to research their news a bit more. they don’t rely on one news outlet alone. we liberals move around – a little cnn here and little msnbc there; throw in a little classic three with cbs, nbc and abc. liberal do a lot of thinking and research so one source isn’t enough.
now i don’t want to say that the right wing don’t research. i’m sure they do but they have a whole network that spouts their belief system. i think the research the right wing probably does is to justify everything nasty thing they’ve heard about liberals and to try and find sources (usually right wing blogs and radio shows) that support everything fox has told them to believe.
i can’t wait to see the second half of the o’leilly interview with jon stewart. as usual, o’leilly comes off as a jerk and stewart just looks above it all. he lets o’leilly get his insults in and put his finger in stewart’s face. stewart really is above the o’leilly nastiness.
i was stumbling on the internet this morning and stumbled across this entry on wikipedia. after reading the first paragraph (below) i was amazed that there was actually a term to describe fox news and far right commentators! it almost (almost, but not) makes me feel bad for the righties. maybe it’s not o’leilly’s fault that he has a hyper-inflated ego. he can’t help it! this can also be applied quite accurately to creationists and evangelicals and their feeling of superiority over atheists.
“the dunning–kruger effect is an example of cognitive bias in which ‘people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it’. they therefore suffer an illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average. this leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than relatively more competent people. it also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. “thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.”
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
1. Incompetent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill. (george bush, glenn beck, michelle malkin, ann coulter)
2. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others. (again, all of the above and i guess you could include most of the republican congress)
3. Incompetent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy. (this one perfect describes the bush administration. pretty much totally incompetent from beginning to end.)
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill. (i think we would be dreaming to think that any of these people named above could be trained.)
