Turn Off Fox News: Our Patriotic Duty
While the power of the mass media in the hands of private sector elites should not be taken lightly, power imbalances do not relieve us of our responsibility to at least try to stay informed. 

And in the past several years numerous studies have documented one consistent finding that should help us do just that:  if you choose to watch Fox News you are choosing to be far more misinformed than those who choose to get their news from any other source…and even more misinformed than those who have no daily source of news at all.

Consider the list below of inaccurate statements that Fox News viewers are far more likely to believe to be true and it is clear that it is no accident that our political discourse has become so confusing…these are inaccurate statements that some elites are spending billions in the hope that we will repeat these as if they were true…and as if these were our own ideas. 

This list is from a Fall 2010 study at the University of Maryland, which found that Fox News viewers were "significantly more likely" to believe the following inaccurate statements to be true:

• Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)
• Most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
• The economy is getting worse (26 points)
• Most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)
• The stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)
• Their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
• The auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)
• When TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
• It is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

Consider that all these inaccuracies skew in one partisan direction, making this evidence of systematic, not just random, efforts to misinform…and evidence that the efforts are working (given the magnitude of the differential found and shown in parentheses above)…millions of us repeat these every day, with passion, as if these were our own ideas.

Consider the Lukovich cartoon above.  Media sources other than Fox cover this as seen here (in what some criticize as depending on a clearly false equivalency in order to preserve their professional norm of objectivity).  Fox News covers this without any effort to reveal the ways that elites on both sides strategize to advance their interests. 

Instead, Fox consistently frames news stories as if one side is right and the other side is wrong…such that large numbers of Americans still think the president is an alien, a Muslim, and a socialist…despite all evidence to the contrary. 

The sad part is, as Lukovich shows here, neither approach presents the story in a way that makes it easier to understand, though the Fox approach makes is many times more confusing since Fox does not even start by getting the basic facts right.

Regardless of your position on policy or the president, make your case without relying on systematic misinformation from Fox News…that would seem to be a serious and do-able step toward staying informed and supporting the sustainability of American democracy.  We should all reject Fox News as a sign of our patriotism.

Below are some excellent sources of news to consider in place of Fox.  While Fox is the worst (because they do not even try to be objective) any single source has its own framing devices, so the easiest step two is to have more than one source of daily news.  That puts us on a path to learn to see the spin and framing and be better prepared to make our own judgments.  

So, for instance, combine the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.  Or, Huffington Post and National Review.  Or Rachel Maddow and Brent Baier.  Or all of the above and those below.  The internet makes this pretty easy to accomplish.

Here are a few good sources that I recommend you bookmark on your favorites list...in addition to reading your local daily newspaper…but the specific list is less important than (1) stop consuming Fox News because Fox does not even try to inform and (2) get your daily news from more than one source—and multiple sources that have competing perspectives is even better—so you can learn to see the spin and think for yourself.

• National Public Radio
• The News Hour on PBS
• Factcheck
• Real Clear Politics
• The Daily Show

While a comedy show, if you are trying to learn to see the spin and challenge the messages that the powerful want us to repeat for them as if they were our own ideas, your list should include the Daily Show or the Colbert Report…but like any single source, if you only listen to these you will simply be spouting their ideas as if they were yours.