Reply #49: Agreed. But the one problem with your argument is [View All]

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that many people are NOT smart enough to see through blatant misinformation. Try asking a cross-section of average Joes whether Saddam had anything to do with 9/11.

They still assume that it's legitimate truth because that's how it used to be, and well, since there's "truth in advertising," they couldn't say that on TV if it weren't true, right? I cannot tell you how many times I've heard this come out of people's mouths. The folks on radio and TV come into people's lives, living rooms, and bedrooms. We trust them. Especially in the intimate medium that radio is, where it's just you and the microphone, and you're just talking to one person out there, just you and them, it's EXTREMELY intimate. People come to trust, based on that. So they have a LOT of misguided trust to place in these people. It is NOT reasonable to assume that everybody has a bullshit detector when it comes to the "news" on TV or radio, or even in print. Many people just eat what they're fed, without analyzing or questioning. They assume that the reporters/anchors have already done the analyzing and questioning - even though we all know those same reporters/anchors have been absolutely asleep at the switch.

I'm not on the air in news anymore, but I still see this all the time, and when I'm invited to talk to classes or groups about it, this comes up all the time. People are shocked that the media might be biased. And when you question them about it and find out what it is they're watching most often, more often than not, it's FOX News. Besides, that same FOX News is the one that blares out, over and over, thousands of times every day "FAIR AND BALANCED!" You hear that enough, you start to believe it. I've run into far too many people who've been had, that way.

P.T. Barnum was right. There IS a sucker born every minute. And just about all of them are regular FOX viewers.