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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Crazy like on Fox

Crazy like on Fox

by | 26 Comments

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Libby Spencer tags an amazing stat (from):

Among Republican voters in Iowa, nearly 40 percent say they get most of their news from the network (Fox) and its many conservative hosts, according to the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll. And among those viewers, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, is trouncing Mr. Romney.

I’d be curious to know if you ask “do you get most of your news from either Fox or right-wing radio”, if that figure would go over 50% (Rush isn’t on Fox and his audience is at least as large as Fox).

Reader Interactions

26Comments

  2. 2.

    Brachiator

    Among Republican voters in Iowa, nearly 40 percent say they get most of their news from the network (Fox) and its many conservative hosts.

    It’s a known fact that watching Faux News makes you stupid.

    612 New Jersey residents were polled about where they got their news, and then were asked a few questions, like whether Egyptians successfully overthrew the Mubarak regime (yes), whether Syrians successfully overthrew the Assad regime (no), and whether the Occupy Wall Street protestors were predominantly Democrats or Republicans (Democrats).
    __
    Here’s the surprising results, though some of you will say you’re not surprised:
    __
    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.

    I wonder if the Fox echo chamber will be a kingmaker and make Newt the inevitable nominee?

  3. 3.

    The Moar You Know

    The greatest tragedy of the modern left has been our utter inability to put together a media machine like the one that the righties have.

    I suppose we should be grateful that they haven’t used that network to openly and constantly call for the killing of all liberals.

    Yet.

  4. 4.

    amk

    A country willing to be nose-led by the likes of rush, pox news and rw radio jocks for decades isn’t worth saving.

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    Republican voters in Iowa

    Probably get 90% of their (dis)information from the many organs of the Wingnut Wurlitzer.

  7. 7.

    fasteddie9318

    @The Moar You Know: I sometimes think it’s only a matter of time before the calls come on winger radio to start cutting down the tall trees. I think Rush is too mainstream for something like that, but Boortz? Or Beck? I could see it.

  8. 8.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    @The Moar You Know: The greatest tragedy of the modern left has been our utter inability to put together a media machine like the one that the righties have.

    I can certainly see the utility of such a thing, but I think only authoritarians could have come up with the approach the righties have used. There is certainly such a thing as left-authoritarian, but I’m not thrilled by that kind of thing either.

    (this is assuming that a “media machine like the one the righties have” means the same top-down marching-orders approach.)

  9. 9.

    fasteddie9318

    And it’s not just a failure to build a media machine that is killing liberals. There’s nothing like the pseudo-thinktank system on the left to push propaganda as serious research and launder donations to finance a lefty employment network to rival wingnut welfare. I hate what AEI, Heritage, etc. do, but it is effective.

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Xecky Gilchrist:

    I can certainly see the utility of such a thing, but I think only authoritarians could have come up with the approach the righties have used.

    That’s the problem right there. Too much of the population is made up of natural serfs, totally undeserving of the freedoms that so many have fought, bled, and died for.

  12. 12.

    Mike E

    The whole damn thing is “The Fox News Republican Primary.” This is the final evolution of Our Experiment In Democracy, starting roughly 24 years ago when the League of Women Voters couldn’t, in their right conscience, sanction presidential debates due to them becoming the craven exercises that we fully know and love today.

  15. 15.

    Mike E

    @amk: Would be inneresting if Blago will take the time to cultivate a beard that goes along with that chinchilla toboggan of his.

  16. 16.

    The Moar You Know

    this is assuming that a “media machine like the one the righties have” means the same top-down marching-orders approach.

    @Xecky Gilchrist: Much as I might pine for that sort of cohesiveness on the left, it seems that lefties can’t work that way. Which is fine. I’d settle for even something as pathetic and ineffective as Air America was, if it could be backed enough financially to not go off the air in a couple of years. Just getting the ball rolling at this point would be great – anything would be better than the nothing we have.

    Looks like fasteddie9318 has identified the other needed missing element. Hell, that might be the more important one.

  18. 18.

    shortstop

    @Mike E: I wish they still buzz-cut the prisoners. Seeing Rod cry while they zzzzzzzzzzd off his “tribute to Elvis” (no, really — he has confirmed that’s what it is) would be the awesomest.

  21. 21.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    @Jewish Steel:

    Only 40%? That’s the part that surprises me.

    Might be higher if they also included the other 40% who get most of their news from chain emails and flyers left under the windshield wipers of their trucks.

  22. 22.

    Svensker

    I don’t get what the amazing part is. Unless you’re shocked that it’s only 40% instead of closer to 90%.

  23. 23.

    Walker

    How is this possible? If you look at the ratings for Fox News, they are tiny. O’Reilly gets 3.1 million viewers. If there were only 6 million Republicans, we wouldn’t have a problem.

  24. 24.

    Zifnab

    @fasteddie9318:

    There’s nothing like the pseudo-thinktank system on the left to push propaganda as serious research and launder donations to finance a lefty employment network to rival wingnut welfare. I hate what AEI, Heritage, etc. do, but it is effective.

    But we DO have those organizations. Except, rather than pseudo-thinktanks, they are actual thinktanks, and rather than propaganda research they do scientific research. We’ve got the NSF, we’ve got Nova on PBS, we’ve got the ACLU and NARAL and a thousand other liberal agencies.

    The problem isn’t that our organizations don’t exist. It’s that our organizations don’t make any money. If pulling a few million poor children out of poverty turned the Center for American Progress an extra billion dollars a year, they’d be rolling all over the right wing media because they’d be stacked with cash from their successful business enterprise.

    By contrast, if drilling for oil in ANWR was a strictly humanitarian effort with no fiscal side benefits, the idea would have died ages ago. You wouldn’t see CATO or AEI or Heritage pushing the agenda because no one would be handing them fat stacks to do it.

    If you want to look at an industry that is both highly profitable AND progressive, look at the AFL-CIO. Increasing union membership offers them a very real and tangible financial reward. And, not surprisingly, they serve as one of the major monetary forces on the left.

    Fund raising is absolutely key to pushing any kind of agenda. Look at how Obama out raised McCain in ’08, or how Michael Moore and Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth and MoveOn.org became major factors in politics. It’s money, money, money, money, money. Look at the success of Act Blue. Look at DKos fund raising drives. These are effective organizations, because they bring in the big bucks and target them at specific objectives as effectively as any right wing group ever has. That’s your business model, right there.

  26. 26.

    AA+ Bonds

    I guaran-goddamn-tee you that in Iowa and South Carolina at least, there are a LOT nastier things getting voiced about Mormonism on AM radio than will ever make it to the Village’s ears.

    And I don’t mean because it’s election season. Those programs are vocally anti-Mormon every day of every year. Spin your dial during your commute tomorrow and you might be able to find one yourself.

    That’s likely partly behind Gingrich’s supposedly money-less surge.

    For me, the news is always gonna be who’s up in South Carolina. Since the Republicans created the South Carolina primary for their party, its winner has always been their candidate in the general election.

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