Fitting
By mistermix December 18th, 2010
Here’s the Fox News response to a new University of Maryland study [pdf] showing that regular Fox viewers were far more likely to be misinformed on a wide range of facts:
Michael Clemente, who is the senior vice president of news editorial for the network, said: “The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”
The tactic of using red herring ad hominems to respond to any fact they find unappealing is the cornerstone of Fox’s coverage, so it’s no surprise that a VP trotted out this exceedingly lame one.
Also relevant: Polifact’s lie of the year just happens to be a big Fox meme.
Not to mention that UMD is one of America’s top research universities. Truly pathetic.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Well, it is true that all academic studies at research universities are conducted by fraternity and sorority members during rush week, so the Fox people have a point.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:40 am
The truth is relative
December 18th, 2010 at 10:42 am
FSM, I hope he gets raked over the coals for this slam. But since it’s a weekend release, probably not gonna happen.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:44 am
Any pictures yet of the “Mission Accomplished” banner at Fox News headquarters?
December 18th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Well, Al Gore is fat.
This is the same logic.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Gotta love the next paragraph of that story:
Fox News: Now telling lies to screen their other lies.
dms
December 18th, 2010 at 10:47 am
FWIW, I think the “Princeton” Review (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the college of the same name) is the most worthless piece of shit related to college rankings. Their methodology is flawed, their rankings bullshit, and it’s nothing more than grifting while preying on people with little information to go on. In that sense, they are in the same league as FOXNews.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:51 am
I could email that study and the other studies and polls to all the republicans I know and they would say it was a liberal lie funded by George Soros.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:53 am
On that subject, this NY Times piece of a couple of years ago on how they respond to critics.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:54 am
I think Fox News has now passed ludicrous speed and has gone plaid.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:56 am
Sweet Man. I’m sure he’ll agree with the proposition that it clearly follows that Fox News is utterly useless because the channel is known for its lighthearted comedy entertainment.
December 18th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Further, Clemente said, “And the President of U of MD is a big poopy-pants!”
Clemente also strongly added, if anyone wondered, that he wasn’t any relation to that strong-arming Castro-loving Spic ballplayer.
Roberto Clemente’s family, from Puerto Rico, was apoplectic that he shares the same name as the great ballplayer and humanitarian, and said they were thinking of changing their last name.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:01 am
@Omnes Omnibus: I was going to say exactly the same thing before looking at the comments.
It’s absolutely beyond stupid, which is a magical zone in which FoxNooz is a primary inhabitant.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Fox is a political organization. It is not in the news business. The purpose of Fox is to put out a conservative pov; that is, propaganda.
This is no fairness doctrine and Fox can say whatever it likes.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Why do the elites at Fox News hate normal American students who enjoy partying from time to time?
December 18th, 2010 at 11:04 am
I read the segment of the study devoted to source of information versus amount of misinformation. Interesting.
The audacity of the researchers in actually performing this study is admirable. Bravo!
December 18th, 2010 at 11:06 am
FOX is merely following the SOP established a long time ago by the loony-left, including virtually all of the front-page posters on this blog.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:07 am
The problem with the Nobel prize in physics is that none of the administrative staff and building upkeep staff in the Norwegian Nobel Institute building are published research physicists.
Also, Al Gore is fat, which puts into clear questions whether or not all these so-called “climate scientists” have actual college degrees.
Anyway, college and postgraduate degrees make you dumber, as all you need is good old Real Amurkin common sense.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:07 am
i remember one of my first football games in the Big House. it was a non-conference game against the tarapins, iirc they are called. even from way up in the student section, their offensive line looked pitifully tiny, compared to the human tanks and roid robots our football program preferred. the game was effectively over by the end of the first quarter, and i think we killed their quarterback, or made him a cripple for life, or something.
at the time, i took this to mean one simple thing: UMary must be a “study school,” for why else would they fail to put all their resources into the all important game of football? my alma mater has many fine departments and instructors and i’m proud to have experienced those, but i never kid myself. i know what a “party school” is really like and i sincerely doubt that UMary is in the top ranks of those. last time i checked, it was a school in our conference that had riots and overturned cars and burned businesses when a championship game ended favorably. i can’t recall ever reading about such at UMaryland.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:08 am
@Pancake: Exactly. Everyone remembers how the Commonist Party USA were the ones pushing the liberals to accuse the scientists studying plate tectonics as biased against Marxism.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Considering that Fox makes millions by nourishing the paranoia of its viewers this study is good news for them. “Those pointy-headed college types say you’re stupid,” fits right in with the right wing’s eternal sense of being the oppressed victims of sinister forces.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Interesting: According to Wikepedia:
“...
The University is ranked 56th in the latest 2011 U.S. News and World Report rankings of “National Universities” across the United States, and it is ranked 12th nationally among public universities. 29 undergraduate and graduate programs are ranked in the top 10 and 90 programs are in the top 25.[49]
The Academic Ranking of World Universities compiled by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked Maryland as 36th in the world as well as 8th among public flagship universities in the United States.[50] Newsweek ranked the University of Maryland as 45th in their ranking “global universities.” The THE-QS World University Rankings ranked the University of Maryland 104 on its top 400 universities in the world in 2010.[51] In 2010 QS World University Rankings[52] ranked the university 104th overall in the world. ...”
Not too shabby. Fox, surprisingly, is dead wrong.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:12 am
@Linda Featheringill: “And your mother wears army boots” Nyaah Nyaah (sp.?)
December 18th, 2010 at 11:12 am
@Pancake:
C’mon you lame pig fucker, you can do better than that! Dig something really rotten and smelly from the soured, bitter dregs at the bottom of that shallow overused shitcan that you call your brain.
Your delivery is flat. Also. Too.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:13 am
In much the same way E! Entertainment Network promotes the entertainment industry with fake news reports generated by publicists, fake reporters, ignoring unpleasantries, etc. Fox promotes the Republican Party.
F! FoxNews Entertainment Network
December 18th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Lame even for Fox.
Hypothesis: at least a slight positive correlation between a university’s academic quality and the robustness of the party scene. The best public universities in each state are generally attended by the most well-off students, who also are the ones who don’t have to work while they go to school. Vocational schools and commuter universities are generally are not known either for cutting-edge research or for the frat party atmosphere.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:15 am
@kth: Still, you’ve got to admire their ability to place in their viewers’ minds that research labs are filled with spillovers from Drunkfest 2010 or whatever.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Ah, who cares? The other networks could air a 30 minute gang rape of a sheep by Beck, O’ Riley, Alies (sorry for that image more than the others), Wallace and Stossel and 27% of America would KNOW it was a fake produced to discredit the fair and balanced work of that fine Fox News before they were even told what to believe. 27% would not be surprised and 46% would be unsure after listening to the he said she said bullshit the modern media would provide as way of coverage.
Two weeks later nobody outside the blogs would remember the event and two months later the meme would be that the media was mean to Fox.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:17 am
@Dennis SGMM:
Yeah. So?
December 18th, 2010 at 11:19 am
I demand Fox News retract and refudiate their slanderous attack on turtle mascots.
Mitch McConnell
December 18th, 2010 at 11:20 am
@kth re: hypothesis- seems reasonable. Also, a population of 20-40,000 students, like they have at most ‘large conference’/major research universities, is more likely to support a neighborhood full of bars, which promote party culture, than other schools, which rarely reach that size.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:21 am
Since it comes from pointy headed elites, it of course must be a lie.
I am completely baffled at what people GET out of watching Fox News. While I have often felt oppressed, I have never wanted to roll in it. And yet, that is what Fox offers, and some people eat it up.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:22 am
@agrippa
What I was going to say. Also, who doesn’t know this?
December 18th, 2010 at 11:23 am
@alwhite:
Fix’t.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:25 am
“I know you are, but what am I?
”
Brilliant rebuttal, Fox. And just the right maturity level for their audience.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:29 am
I’m watching the DREAM vote but haven’t kept score. Very few surprises. Murkowski voted “aye.” Other than that, it has pretty well followed party lines.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:29 am
Attack the messenger; ignore the message. Standard Right-wing ploy. It’s pathetic.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Students party there, so the research done by the faculty is suspect?
Jesus Christ, that’s stupid even by Fox News’s standards.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:30 am
DREAM got only 55 votes.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:32 am
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
SIGH yes, you got it right. Thought it was bad enough before but now I’m too tired to breath.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Word has it that the University of Maryland teachers their students about Hitler and Mao.
Tyrants! Wolverines!
December 18th, 2010 at 11:32 am
And no Republicans send kids to U of Maryland? If college makes you smarter, I can see the college graduating fewer Republicans than the number who entered, but still.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:33 am
DREAM fails, 55-41
December 18th, 2010 at 11:33 am
@Linda Featheringill:
So only the majority want it to pass therefore it is dead. Apparently the Constitution was a suicide pact.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:34 am
Dream Act tanked.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:34 am
go DADT repeal! close that debate! (shaking pom-poms)
December 18th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Speaking of stupid:
McCain’s argument against repeal of DADT was really stupid. There are veterans at Walter Reed without limbs? Yes. They were injured while DADT was in force. What has that to do with sexual orientation?
Voting now.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:38 am
In other unsurprising news: Bank of America has stopped handling payments to Wikileaks.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Since when is it okay for Democrats to filibuster Democratic bills? This will be reported as “failed with bipartisan opposition” rather than 55-41 majority.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Snowe voted aye. So did Brown of Mass.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:45 am
@WereBear:
Reinforcement.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:47 am
63-33
December 18th, 2010 at 11:49 am
/ goooooo DADT repeal!
December 18th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Cloture of DADT passed with 63 votes.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:50 am
@stuckinred: YES! Thank You, Everyone.
A little more justice in this world, pending final vote.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:50 am
@arguingwithsignposts: Don’t get too worked up until it’s signed sealed and delivered.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:50 am
@Mark S.:
Yep. They get their darkest hates and deepest fears confirmed, and get a pass to wallow in their own crapulence.
Fox News is like a security blanket cut from a Klansman’s sheet.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Anyone have a link to how the senators voted?
December 18th, 2010 at 11:51 am
The CNN dude says don’t be fooled, it will pass. Kirk from Illinois voted yes.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:53 am
@stuckinred: Thanks, that is what I wanted to know. I contacted his office quite a bit this week reminding him that IL likes their Republicans “moderate.”
December 18th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Hell yeah. Fuck you to hell, McCain and Kyl.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:54 am
@batgirl: did you tell him to stop sucking McConnell’s dick?
December 18th, 2010 at 11:55 am
@batgirl:
The Dems who voted against cloture on the DREAM Act were:
Pryor (Ark)
Tester (Mont.)
Nelson (Neb.)
Hagan (NC)
Baucus (Mont.)
December 18th, 2010 at 11:55 am
So, Obama was right not to crush Lieberman after all. Holy Joe came through on this, as much as I hate him, I have to give him props on this.
And no thanks to the haters of the “true progressives.” They were wrong. Obama was right.
But I’m sure there will be an endless stream of crap to tell me why Obama is a dick because of this.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Thanks, MSNBC, for covering an important story about idiots suing McDonald’s over happy meals instead of the DADT vote.
OK, now they’re on it.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:56 am
@batgirl: I’ve been gone from there for so Iong I can’t remember. My DuPage County repuke family was anything but moderate. “Joe McCarthy died of a broken heart”! I kid you not.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:56 am
@Mark S.: And the newest in skank exercise clothes.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:57 am
You know what’s depressing? The numbers for the other news sources reported on the study. Fox viewers may be the most misled, but all news media are failing their consumers badly. If U.S. reporters were subjected to the same standards as teachers (annual testing of consumers to determine whether they were learning anything), they’d all be fired.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:58 am
@J:
I had to chuckle. My mother did wear army boots. This was long ago and far away. She was living proof that you can be weird and still be loved.
Anyway, you reminded me of some of the good things that have entered my life.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:58 am
So, what I’m getting is that the right wingers hate immigrants more than gays? Do I have that right?
December 18th, 2010 at 11:59 am
@TR:
Consider this officially stolen.
December 18th, 2010 at 11:59 am
@Linda Featheringill: Cochran’s?
December 18th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Tradition, ya know.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
@Dennis SGMM: Hagan breaks my heart. I feel like I have done so much for her, she kept begging for my money in the last election, I called and walked and …
...this just sucks.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
@James E Powell: Look out if you are a gay immigrant!
December 18th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
@batgirl:
How the senators voted:
DailyKos said they would publish the list when it became available.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
@magurakurin:
Eh, fuck them, too. All they’ve been doing is whine that this was never going to happen this way and that President Obama should have used an EO a long time ago, and Bully Pulpit, and they’ll still find a way to make this an indictment on what a failure he is, and bully pulpit, and did I mention fuck them?
December 18th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
I’m just ashamed of myself for missing the Senate Rules change that requires that every last piece of legislation has to go through a cloture vote.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
@stuckinred: The best example is that Kirk barely won against a very weak Democratic candidate, Giannoulias (this Senate race was the first, and hopefully last, time I ever voted for him) while a very weak Democratic governor, Quinn, won against a very right wing Republican. If Dillard had won the Republican primary, the Republicans would have very easily won the governorship. I pointed this out to his office.
While there are hard core right wing Republicans in this state when it comes to winning state wide races, fiscally conservative but socially moderate Republicans do better.
ETA: the him I voted for was Giannoulias in case that wasn’t clear.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
@harokin:
I have the same problem with Klobuchar. I gave money and many many hours (even too election day off work to door knock for her). Then she could just not bring herself to vote against a single Bush proposal. I wrote & called repeatedly and found both her and her staff totally dismissive and willing to lie to my face about what she did.
What are we to do about “Democrats” like these?
December 18th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
@batgirl: Maybe that’s why my old man moved to Arizona (wink).
December 18th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
@bemused: I could email that study and the other studies and polls to all the republicans I know and they would say it was a liberal lie funded by George Soros.
Don’t forget Tides.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
@Pancake:
Hi Pancake.
Love your Soul.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
@James E Powell:
well, given how many republican are queer, even if the closeted kind, and how few of them speak any other language than Jesus’s Own English, it’s not too surprising.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
@bemused:
From BigBreitbart’s media empire
Alternet: Soros-Funded Study Says Fox Viewers Are “Stupid”
AAHHHHHHHH, LOOK AT TEH SCARY JEW MAN
December 18th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
I think all schools rated in the top 20 academically should repeat the study; I’m going to guess they’ll all find similar results. Let’s see Fox spin that.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
@Linda Featheringill: Glad my feeble effort to enter into the infantile spirit of Fox News (if only for a minute) elicited a chuckle.
December 18th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
And no Republicans send kids to U of Maryland?
I’m sure they do. And they and their children likely resent the school for taking their money and consuming their time to be taught by people they have no respect for, but they deal with it for 4 years as the price one has to pay for a diploma. You really overestimate the amount of respect Republicans have for learning and thinking.
December 18th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
This from a news editor who ends his sentences with prepositions.
December 18th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
The scene opens wherein UM has arrived on horseback to the town square having gone door-to-door asking the peasants their thoughts about the kingdom’s council and the source of their information.
UM: I bring sad news that the jester has been passing around lies about the council throughout the kingdom.
(Suddenly, UM sees an arrow heading toward him from the crowd of townsfolk. He instinctively flinches and the arrow grazes his side as it hits the statue behind him and falls to the ground.
The crowd turns to see the arrows origin.)
Jester (from the rear of the crowd, holding a bow upright in his hand): Don’t listen to UM. He stinks of bad brew and we all know his past attempts at splitting us into factions.
December 18th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
@magurakurin:
So, Obama was right not to crush Lieberman after all. Holy Joe came through on this, as much as I hate him, I have to give him props on this.
The past 6 weeks have been… interesting. First, the Dems reaction to the tax cut compromise reminded me that there are, in fact, people to the left of me (for the first time since 2002!).
Then Sen. Lieberman, as the ‘angel’ on DADT reminds me that not everything is as black or white as it’s seemed the past decade.
These are probably both good things. Though I still fully expect the next 2 years to suck.
December 18th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Drop in whatever topic you want in that space, and it’ll be just as true.
December 18th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
“...we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”
“Level of veracity”? That makes no goddamned sense.
December 18th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
@pancake You know how people often warn against ‘feeding the trolls’ in comment threads?
I have yet to see anybody telling me not to eat the trolls.
December 18th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
he does have a point. the princeton review is one of the country’s premier peer-reviewed journals.
December 18th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
@Dennis SGMM: “those pointy-headed college types say you’re stupid. and now, some commercials for gold coins, halitosis cures, and buckets of non-hybrid seeds.”
December 18th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
When 70-90% of the electorate consistently gets it completely wrong on each and every factual issue, and base their voting decision precisely upon that wrong opinion, can you say it is still worth bothering with the democratic process?
I would like to see similar studies replicated across the Western World. Maybe the Chinese have a point.
The IMF just found out SCIENTIFICALLY that high inequality and a disproportionate amount of wealth going to the rich cause financial bubbles and economic collapses. Who would’ve guessed.
http://motherjones.com/kevin-d.....-collapses
As matter of fact, the USA cut the top marginal tax rate three times in history. In 1924, in 1981, and in 2002.
In 1929, 1987 and 2008, the stockmarket suffered its worst crashes, and America its worst recessions.
But, yeah, tax cuts.
December 18th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Clemente, senior vice-president of Fox News editorial,”we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”......should not end his sentences with a preposition. I’m just saying….
December 18th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
I’m proud to be a UMD grad. Fear the turtle!
December 18th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
FOX News is a Republican and Rupert Murdoch POX on America, and unfortunately there is no cure for it, even as Fox News intentionally dumbs down citizens in our society so they can be more easily manipulated, which is what we saw in the recent midterm elections, people voting not only against their own best interests but against the best interests of our country, all in line with Fox News’ and the Republican’s corporate sponsors, some even being foreign corporate sponsors, who view American workers and our U.S. government as interfering with their quest for unlimited profits and unchecked world domination.
December 18th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
@MattF:
I was being diplomatically correct.
December 18th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
@RinaX:
I like:
go to hell and by the shortest road.
Incidentally, if they need a lift, I will personally carry them there.
December 18th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Fixed.
December 18th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
@Mike Lear, from beginning linguistics course:
A man was going to read his daughter a bedtime story. Before she went upstairs he asked her whether she wanted the Red Fairy book or the Blue Fairy book. She said “the Blue.”
When father went up, he mistakenly took the Red one. His daughter retorted,” What did you bring that book I didn’t want to be read to out of up for?
Hint: these are not prepositions? particles? pieces of two and three word verbs.
December 19th, 2010 at 12:06 am
But of course, not in this case. Clemente is a language douche bag.
December 19th, 2010 at 12:12 am
@jjjohnson:
Dad brought up the book about Australia and she said “Why did you bring up the book I didn’t want you to read to me out of about down under up for?”
December 19th, 2010 at 6:13 am
@In a Nutshell:
That may be what “Wikipedia,” which “we” all know has an extreme leftist socialistic communist progressive “bias,” says, but where does “Conservapedia” rank the University of Maryland? There are “facts” and there are facts, and “we” all know that truth’s “liberal” bias is a well known “fact.” So there.
December 19th, 2010 at 11:35 am
I suspect that the interview of a successful applicant in ANY area of Fox goes something like this…...:
Interviewer: “Can you lie with a straight face?”
Applicant: “Yes, all the time if necessary!”
Interviewer; “Do you have any ethics?”
Applicant: “No! Would I be applying for a job here if I had any?”
December 22nd, 2010 at 9:15 pm