Showing posts with label university of maryland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label university of maryland. Show all posts

Saturday, December 18, 2010

So, the University of Maryland does a study ...

Which tells us something we pretty much already knew: Fox News intentionally spews political misinformation at a phenomenal rate. In short, they invent stuff and then peddle it as "fact". The whole entity is a propaganda machine. CNN and MSNBC fared a little better in the study, but the level of misinformation US voters took to the polls with them from those news sources was far from what could be considered accurate. Those voters possessing the most accurate information were regular viewers or listeners of public broadcasting.

Which would explain why the Harperites are hell bent on destroying the CBC. No different from their American mentors in the Republican party, Harper conservatives and accurate information don't mix. They would prefer instead to pelt Canadian voters with reams of propaganda from this. They're counting on large numbers of Canadians to swallow whatever is put in front of them, not because it's accurate, but because it's on TV.

Michael Clemente, the senior vice-president of news editorial at Fox News, who has his finger in every news broadcast produced by Fox attempted to dismiss the University of Maryland study with this.

“The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”
That might have been a solid rebuttal if it weren't for one thing: The Princeton Review didn't rank the University of Maryland that way at all.

The university ranked top as having "Students Who Study The Least" was the University of North Dakota, and the university ranked as the "Best Party School" was the University of Georgia. The University of Maryland was way down the list in both those categories, but it did receive top marks for "Best Athletic Facilities" and it continued to receive federal research funding from the National Institute of Health, NASA and the DHS.

So, Clemente, in keeping with the theme well-established by his very own Fox News, combated a report on high levels of misinformation originating in his office by providing even more misinformation. Some people would say he lied.

The problem is, in the US at least, is that it works.