Turn off the idiot box

You likely won't hear me talk much about what my political views are. Not becasue I don't have any but because I feel, like religion, it's personal and I certainly don't want to hear about yours. I am more interested in POLICY than I am in politics. The policy of taking care of the elderly is not a partisan issue, thank you very much. But I digress...

My boss forwarded this weekly email to me from PR land and I quite enjoy it and will be subscribing soon. Last week had a feature on common grammar mistakes and this week had a feature on Fox News. I realize saying 'here is a dig at Fox News' is akin to sharing my political views but it's worth it in this case.

From http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/10128.aspx:

Study: Fox News viewers know less than people who don’t watch the news

By Michael Sebastian | Posted: November 22, 2011

Fox News viewers are ill-informed.

That’s the gist of the PublicMind poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University, which found that Fox News viewers know less about certain current events than people who don’t watch the news at all.

According the study, Fox News viewers were 18 points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who don’t watch TV news. People who watch Fox News were also six points less likely to know Syrians have not yet overthrown their government.

Fairleigh Dickinson polled more than 600 adult residents of New Jersey and accounted for education and partisanship.

"Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all."

Charles Seife, a journalist and New York University professor, tweeted his skepticism of the poll (in two parts):
“Latest ‘Fox News makes you stupid’ poll is deeply flawed. Tiny sample size, “esp. subdivided …and the poll's measure of ‘well informed’ has leftist bias.”

He also noted that Fox News viewers scored higher than NPR listeners on a question about which Republican candidate is leading in the polls.

NPR listeners, according to the study, are among the best-informed news consumers, along with those who read daily newspapers, such as USA Today and The New York Times, and, to the greatest extent, those who watch Sunday morning news programs.

Speaking of NPR, former Poynter blogger Jim Romenesko uncovered some statistics about listeners of the radio network, although the data don’t shed light on those listeners’ knowledge of current events.

Here are a few examples, which Romenesko credits to the @nprresearch Twitter feed:

• NPR News listeners were 94 percent more likely to have signed a petition in the past 12 month.
• 15 percent of its listeners view their cell phone as an extension of their personality.
• They’re 108 percent more likely than the average adult to go to live theater.
• They’re 42 percent more likely to drive a car with a manual transmission.

For more on NPR stats, visit JimRomenesko.com. To read the entire PublicMinds poll, click here.
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I thought many of you might enjoy this and it makes me wonder how well those who read fake news sites (Onion News Network) or watch fake news shows (Daily Show/Colbert Report) do in comparison to the Fox crowd. If in doubt about which network to watch, it seems just avoiding the news all together is your best bet.

A-choo!

I'm usually a 3-sneezer and I always know when they're coming. The most common triggers are smoke and perfume. Once those things crawl up there, it's all over.

So, sitting in the super nice echo-y busines building last week, I could feel them coming on. And instead of holding them in and feeling like I ate a canary, I let them fly: "1!-2!-3!" sneezes. While I'm sneezing I notice a well-dressed gentleman sitting across from me holding up a finger for each sneeze. Each time I sneeze he adds a finger and counts out loud "one! two! three!" and I realize the sounds of his counting are muffled.

A deaf man counted my sneezes because, why not?

There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

I don't think there's much else to say about that. Thank you, Ms. Albright, for putting that so very succinctly.

Anxiety through the roof, anger off the charts, will bite if provoked.