Watch the Daily Show? You’re Smart. Read Blogs or Watch FOX? Not So Much

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This is big. Mother Jones just merged with the Center for Investigative Reporting, and this is the first time we’re asking for the donations we rely on. So we lay it all out for you in “Less Dreading, More Doing,” and we need to raise the First $500,000 in online donations by June 22. It won’t be easy. Please help if you can.

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It’s always a treat when studies come out that link how much individuals know with where they get their news. In the following tables, the percentage next to a media outlet’s name represents the number of viewers of that outlet that can answer 15 of 23 questions about political and world affairs correctly. Not a particularly high bar.

Daily Show/Colbert Report	54%
Major Newspapers’ Websites	54%
NewsHour w/ Jim Lehrer	53%
Bill O’Reilly	51%
NPR	51%
Rush Limbaugh	50%

Those are the folks who did well. Here’s the group that did just okay.

Newsmagazines	48%
Local Newspaper	43%
CNN	41%

Ouch, CNN. Clean up your act. And here’s the folks that did really poorly. This is the funniest group.

Network Evening News	38%
Blogs	37%
Fox News	35%
Local TV News	35%
Network Morning Shows	34%

I’ll let you digest all of that without making the numerous easy jokes. But I’ll point out two facts: First, other questions from the same poll reveal that people are about as aware of major news events today as they were 20 years ago, so the information explosion has not helped anything. And second, the national average? 35%. So the majority of the country either gets their news from FOX, local news, morning shows, or doesn’t get the news from anywhere at all.

For shame, Regis and Kelly.

Update: Some other tidbits that I love. Only 69% of people in America know Dick Cheney is the vice president. Also, this: “Democrats and Republicans were about equally represented in the most knowledgeable group but there were more Republicans in the least aware group.”