Fox News Study

A year-long study by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)[9] reported that Americans who relied on the Fox News Channel for their coverage of the Iraq war were the most likely to believe misinformation about the war, whatever their political affiliation may be. Those mistaken facts, the study found, increased viewers' support for the war.

The study found that, in general, people who watched Fox News were, more than for other sources, convinced of several untrue propositions which were actively promoted by the Bush administration and the cheerleading media led by Fox, in rallying support for the invasion of Iraq:

(percentages are of all poll respondents, not just Fox watchers)

Fifty-seven percent believed the falsity that Iraq gave substantial support to Al-Qaida, or was directly involved in the September 11 attacks (48% after invasion).
Sixty-nine percent believed the falsity that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks.
Twenty-two percent believed the falsity that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. (Twenty-one percent believed that chem/bio weapons had actually been used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq during 2003)
In the composite analysis of the PIPA study, 80 percent of Fox News watchers had one of more of these misperceptions, in contrast to 71 percent for CBS and 27 percent who tuned to NPR/PBS.

As the Washington Post reported[10], "The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were 'the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions.' Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three."

As Alternet reported, "For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far. Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between."[11]

The Project for Excellence in Journalism's "State of the News Media 2005" concluded that Fox was "the most one-sided of all major news outlets." On Iraq, 25 percent of 2,000 stories analyzed were negative and 20 percent were positive. "Fox News Channel was twice as likely to be positive than negative, while CNN and MSNBC were evenhanded." Also, "with the exception of Republicans who prefer Fox News," Americans don't seek out news sources that reinforce their beliefs.[12]