Lies and the lying liars who tell them

Harold Myerson weighs in with an op-ed piece in the Post entitled Fact Free News. In it he describes a new study which "proves" that Fox News viewers are far more likely than other Americans to have the facts about Iraq wrong. Not surprisingly, from his view, those who watch PBS and listen to NPR are the least likely to have the wrong facts.

Interesting stuff, but what is more interesting is his explanation for it:

Take a wild flight of fancy with me and assume for just a moment that one major goal over at Fox is to ensure Bush's reelection. Surely, anyone who believes that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were in cahoots, that we've found the WMD and that Bush is revered among the peoples of the world -- all of these known facts to nearly half the Fox viewers -- is a good bet to be a Bush voter in next year's contest. By this standard -- moving votes into Bush's column and keeping them there -- Fox has to be judged a stunning success.

Hmmm . . . that seems a stretch, doesn't it? But let's assume he's right. Isn't it just as true to say that "one major goal over at NPR and PBS is to ensure Bush's ouster?" In fact, one might even say that about the Washington Post, where "within just three or four sentences [of a recent front page story], innocent readers were told a half-dozen statistical lies." That according to this Cato Institute analysis, which suggests the Post story "may be a new record."

I am not a huge fan of Fox News (I even listen to NPR), and I'll freely concede that the statistics to which Myerson alludes, if true, are disturbing. At the same time, though, blaming a vast right wing conspiracy has never been the best way to respond to news you don't like. Just ask her.

(The title, by the way, references Al Franken, who is apparently doing a classy line of Rush Limbaugh drug addiction jokes.)
- posted by Anonymous @ 9:04 AM