It takes an odd sort of determination to prove watchers of Fox News aren't grossly misinformed and that they're actually more informed than PhD researchers at the University of Maryland. That's what Lee Doren or his moniker HowTheWorldWorks attempts to prove with the video "Fox News Viewers Are Misinformed Study, The Critique" only to crash and burn.
Some background
The idea of Fox News viewers being misinformed isn't new, the University of Maryland conducted a similar study regarding the Iraq War and found that Fox News viewers were the most likely to believe myths like that Weapons of Mass destruction were found in Iraq. However, one thing that needs to be said is that the election study only found a correlation between Fox News watchers and never claimed claimed to look for a cause. As far as the study is concerned, Fox News simply attracts those that are more misinformed.
Four Random Myths
Lee Doren begins by cherry-picking the four weakest correlations the study found between Fox News viewers and the myths they believed out of nine. We'll start with the four and work around a few others.
The four myths he chooses are that:
- most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses
- most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit
- the economy is getting worse
- when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it
The Myths Are True?
Stimulus
Beginning with the stimulus myth, Lee asks for a survey of economists to show most economists believe the stimulus created jobs and attempts to debunk...a survey of economists showing most economists believe the stimulus created jobs (along with a CBO report).
The study uses a survey of WSJ economists to show that most economists thought it had a positive effect on jobs. This doesn't satisfy because "No evidence was offered [the economists] even spent 5 minutes thinking about the question". So apparently now Lee's original criteria of a simple survey isn't enough, we now need a written explanation of each economist as to why they though so. It's worth noting that the survey could be critiqued for having a small sample size of only about 50 economists but criticizing a survey for not going outside its (and Lee's) original mandate is ridiculous. But in case, it seems like that survey was a fluke, there was another survey , this time by USA Today which surveyed about the same number of economists and came with the same results.
Lee's other criticism is that the study used a CBO report which didn't estimate for the "crowding out" effect. Now, while the crowding out effect is universally agreed to only happen during good economic times, another study by two Dartmouth professors found no such effect and even found that the more stimulus funding states got, the better their job results were. The study states that "We are more confident that the stimulus had at least some positive effect, so perfect crowding out did not occur."
Lee than attempts to prove a crowding out effect did in fact happen by pointing to a Harvard study that "shocked" the researchers. The only problem is that the study deals with earmark spending which is less than half a percent of the budget while actual studies of the stimulus found that it did in fact have a positive effect on jobs.
Healthcare
This is probably Lee's strongest point since he first claims that no survey was used to determine what "most economists" thought (although judging by how he criticized a legitimate survey which disproves an earlier point we can assume what he would of thought of a real survey).
Instead it goes by a CBO report which estimated that the healthcare bill will reduce the deficit. So to try and counter this, Lee interjects the completely unrelated issue of the "Doc fix" or Medicare and Medcaid compensation for doctors that supposedly outweighs cost savings from the bill.
The problem with this argument is that the doc fix has nothing to do with the healthcare bill, it's been updated as a separate piece of legislation since 1997. So while it's an issue that relates to healthcare, the original question only asked about the healthcare bill not "the healthcare bill + other healthcare related issues".
Economy is getting worse
As the study points out, the recession officially ended in 2009 meaning, by any definition, the economy isn't getting worse. To try and counter this claim, Lee goes on to assert that there is a possibility of a double dip recession.
Now, fringe beliefs of a double dip recession aside, lets assume he's correct and a double dip recession is on it's way. Even if it were true, factually speaking, the economy would still be recovering prior to another slump in GDP.
GOP opposing Bailouts
In Lee's estimation, "there were arguably too votes for TARP" meaning that the study didn't specify between the final and prior vote since prior to passing, most republicans opposed it. Now, legislation is constalty debated and re-written and stalled etc. all the time, so why it would be relevant to look at an earlier vote is pointless, what matters is the final vote.
Some Other Myths
Lee also attempts to disprove the "Obama is born outside the United States" myth by asserting that Fox News never actively promoted it. The problem is that the study never tried to assume that Fox News makes it's viewers misinformed, only that the people that watch it are misinformed.
What Lee Didn't Talk About
Fortunalty for Lee, he never discussed issues like the myth of how "most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring" even though a PNAS study put the figure at about 98% of climate scientists. This is significant since Fox News did actively push this myth through the highest levels of management.
Conclusion
Fox News viewers are still misinformed and it takes a high level of distortions and straw-man arguments to prove it's not the case.
