Friday, January 09, 2015

Dear FOX News viewer

Dear FOX News viewer,

Honestly, I’m just trying to help.

Lost amid the ongoing Charlie Hebdo coverage is the release of yet another survey, this one conducted by World Public Opinion, a project managed by The Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, that finds that regular FOX News viewers are more misinformed than consumers of other news sources. This is only the latest of a number of surveys in recent years that have found the “fair and balanced” news organization is anything but.

To put it plainly, you are being fed a daily dose of bull manure mistaking it for hot dogs and cheap beer. FOX News is conservative propaganda, not actual news. If you choose not to believe the surveys that confirm this, it’s your business, but please don’t try and convince the rest of us you know what you’re talking about, because you don’t.

FOX News isn’t telling you what you need to know to be an informed citizen, it is telling you what you want to hear. It gleefully stokes your anger, your fears and your bigotry so that you feel better about the noxious views you were raised with (and stay tuned in). I’m sorry that the real world doesn’t fit neatly into your personal version of reality. I know that it makes you very angry. I’ve read your fact-free diatribes and schoolyard insults in the comments section of many online articles.

Change is hard. I understand this, but it doesn’t help anyone, especially you, to continue living in a world that rejects science and is untethered from reality. There’s room for everyone under the umbrella of reason if you just make the effort by turning off FOX News, Limbaugh and Beck. Your brain, your heart and your fellow citizens will thank you.

Sincerely,

John

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