Survey Result: "Watching Fox News makes you dumber than watching no news at all."

[Towlie]

Survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University: http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless

But the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for
their news. For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour
cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their
government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news
sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers
are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their
government than those who watch no news.

"Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by
Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a
professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind
Poll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that
leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at
all."

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/watching-fox-news-makes-you-dumber-than-watching-no-news/">Additional commentary by Dr. Jerry Coyne