One of Murdoch’s more subtle front pages

New study finds that Murdoch-owned Fox News misinforms more than any other  US station.

“Fox News stood out for the high amount of incorrect information believed by its viewers.” (WPO conclusion)

Watching Fox News leaves viewers less informed and more prone to believing misinformation, according to a study conducted by the WorldPublicOpinion.org at the University of Maryland. WPO is a consortium of research centers studying public opinion on international issues in their respective countries. At present the network consists of research centers in more than 25 countries across all of the major continents. Team leader Clay Ramsay regularly appears in the media providing analyses of public opinion. With a background in history and psychology, he has focused on the study of ideology and mass psychology.

“We found that those who watch Fox nearly every day, compared to those who never or only watch it a little, are more likely to believe some pieces of misinformation that circulated during the recent election campaign,” said Ramsay. While regular consumers of news were found to be more informed on issues surrounding the 2010 Senate elections, Fox viewers were significantly more likely to believe incorrect information on (especially) the economy, and whether or not U.S. President Barack Obama was born in America.

The WPO researchers found that the more people watched Fox News, the more misinformed they became; and it didn’t matter whether they were Republican or a Democrat in leanings. Ramsay concludes that “it has been statistically proven that you will be more misinformed if you watch Fox (News) versus other networks.”

As all the US news networks did appallingly badly, Mr Ramsay was moved to add that, “For Fox News to stand out against that background it had to be really pretty bad”.

Or put more simply, Fox News is a crappy propaganda station working on behalf of the Congressional Republican Party – within which there are more than twenty employees of  Newscorp….which owns Fox News. It is a dissembler of the facts, and spreader of falsehoods about its political opponents.

And the UK arm of this fine organisation is about to be given the go-ahead by Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt to take over BSkyB and become the main competitor to the BBC.

In the UK, several Newscorp executives face criminal charges of illegal privacy invasion, and Newscorp itself has admitted to more than a hundred cases of same in the civil Courts. Former Newscorp editor Andy Coulson was until this year Head of Communications at Ten Downing Street. He too may well face criminal charges, as may Newscorp CEO Rebekah Brooks….a personal friend of the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Mr Cameron gained the enthusiastic support of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers during the 2010 General Election.

Allowing Newscorp to proceed with the BSkyB takeover flies in the face of an avalanche of facts strongly suggesting that the Murdoch empire is an unfit body to have such media power in the UK market. But soon – very possibly within the next 36 hours – Hunt will make public his decision to let the move go ahead.

It stinks. Everyone across the political spectrum who despises corruption knows it stinks.

Pass on this post to any site or individual you think can make constructive use of it. Send it to you MP. Link it to the Number Ten website.

The police don’t care, the politicians don’t care, and most of the mainstream media would rather look the other way. So it’s up to us now: we’re on our own.

Show the Establishment that we are here in numbers. Thank you in advance.