Fox News/Rush audience have more political knowledge than CNN audience!

[Will9]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081015/sc_livescience/americansflunksimple3questionpoliticalsurvey

Some news audiences are more politically savvy than others, according to a new poll, with readers of The New Yorker and similar high-brow magazines being the most knowledgeable.

The survey, conducted between April 30 and June 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, measured the political knowledge of 3,612 U.S. adults. Participants were asked to name the controlling party of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and Great Britain's prime minister.

Overall, just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly.

More than 50 percent of Americans knew that the Democrats have a majority in the House, while 42 percent could identify the secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice). Less than 30 percent could name the prime minister of Great Britain (Gordon Brown).

Perfect scores

The best-informed news audiences crossed the ideological spectrum. Nearly half of regular readers of The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine answered all three political knowledge questions correctly.

A perfect score was obtained by 44 percent of regular listeners of National Public Radio (NPR), 43 percent of regular viewers of MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and 42 percent of the Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" audience. Thirty-four percent of "The Colbert Report" audience and 30 percent of "The Daily Show" audience got all three questions correct.

While most news audiences knew that Democrats have a majority in the House, participants struggled to correctly name the current British prime minister.

Just four news audiences had a majority who correctly identified Gordon, including regular readers of The New Yorker and similar magazines such as The Atlantic, regular NPR listeners, regular readers of political magazines, such as The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, and regular viewers of "Hardball."

Just 44 percent of BBC viewers identified the prime minister correctly.

Here's a detailed breakdown of the percentage of individuals answering each of the three questions correctly from the different news audiences:

* The New Yorker/Atlantic: 71 percent (correctly identified Democrats as the majority in the House), 71 percent (correctly identified Condeleeza Rice), 59 percent (correctly identified Gordon Brown)
* NPR: 73 percent, 72 percent, 57percent
* Hannity & Colmes: 84 percent, 73 percent, 49 percent
* Rush Limbaugh: 83 percent, 71 percent, 41 percent
* Colbert Report: 73 percent, 65 percent, 49 percent
* Daily Show: 65 percent, 48 percent, 36 percent
* NewsHour: 66 percent, 52 percent, 47 percent
* O'Reilly Factor: 70 percent, 60 percent, 41 percent
* C-SPAN: 63 percent, 59 percent, 35 percent
* Letterman/Leno: 51 percent, 42 percent, 31 percent
* CNN: 59 percent, 48 percent, 29 percent
* National Enquirer: 44 percent, 32 percent, 22 percent

Education factor

In general, well-educated news audiences scored high on political knowledge. For instance, 54 percent of the regular readers of publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper's Magazine are college graduates, as are 54 percent of regular NPR listeners.

However, several news audiences with relatively low proportions of college graduates also scored well on the news quiz. Just 31 percent of regular "Hannity & Colmes" viewers are college graduates. Even still, 42 percent Hannity viewers got perfect scores on the political knowledge quiz, compared with 44 percent of NPR listeners.

Nearly 40 percent of the regular audience of the news parody "The Colbert Report" are college graduates, compared with 30 percent of "The Daily Show" viewers. Both shows have younger audiences than other TV news sources, with less than a quarter of Colbert and Daily Show viewers over the age of 50, compared with more than half of "Hardball" and "Hannity & Colmes" viewers being 50 and older.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

No surprise; CNN's audience is more mainstream and less ideological; the Fox audience care's enough about politics to seek out a station with a common ideological bias. Such an audience is almost certain to know more about politics, since they were driven to the station by politics to begin with.

But if you want to turn this into a liberal-vs.-conservative thing, I would note that the stereotypical news source of liberals is not CNN but NPR -- whose audience is more well-informed than any except the even-more-liberal New Yorker readership.

[Dr Strangelove]

I wiould expect CNN's audience to be almost a general sample of the US population, while Rush's audience is more like a cult.

Also please note that NPR's audience and The New Yorker/ Atlantic Monthly's readership had the most political knowledge.

One might also protest that a mere three question's is a rather poor sampling of 'political knowledge'.

[Lancer]

The Brits have a Prime Minister? Do they have a Sub Prime Minister?

[onodera]

* The New Yorker/Atlantic: 71 percent (correctly identified Democrats as the majority in the House), 71 percent (correctly identified Condeleeza Rice), 59 percent (correctly identified Gordon Brown)

Now this is what amazes me. These people read a snobbish magazine for educated masses and two fifths of them do not know Gordon Brown? *sigh*

[Theben]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
One might also protest that a mere three question's is a rather poor sampling of 'political knowledge'.

[Ramo]

The most bizarre result in the poll is CSPAN being near the bottom.

[Dinner]

A good survey needs more then 3 questions.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by onodera

* The New Yorker/Atlantic: 71 percent (correctly identified Democrats as the majority in the House), 71 percent (correctly identified Condeleeza Rice), 59 percent (correctly identified Gordon Brown)

Now this is what amazes me. These people read a snobbish magazine for educated masses and two fifths of them do not know Gordon Brown? *sigh*

Americans pride themselves in being unedjucated.

[Ben Kenobi]

* Rush Limbaugh: 83 percent, 71 percent, 41 percent

Is it because the people who listen to Rush are more intelligent or because Rush makes them more intelligent?

[DaShi]

More likely they couldn't find the core listeners of Rush out in the boonies.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
* Rush Limbaugh: 83 percent, 71 percent, 41 percent

Is it because the people who listen to Rush are more intelligent or because Rush makes them more intelligent?

More likely the three questions asked are subjects regularly harped upon in right wing media; especially that Democrats are in control of Congress (although defacto the Senate is tied).

I am very confident that a larger questionaire with a more diverse topic of questions would turn in results similar to just about every previous poll. I.E. that Rush & Fox have some of the dumbest listeners on earth.

[DaShi]

Maybe Rush & Co. just have a lot of liberal listeners. There was a study earlier showing liberals to be more intelligent than conservatives.

[Ben Kenobi]

Maybe Rush & Co. just have a lot of liberal listeners. There was a study earlier showing liberals to be more intelligent than conservatives.

I guess it's easier then cutting themselves. No wonder they are so emo.

[DaShi]

You just post with a random phrase generator, don't you?