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As many of you may or may not know, accuracy in reporting is one of my pet peeves. (This includes “reporting” of any kind, from any and all sources, including an individual. A false premise, I’ve often said, equals a flawed conclusion and/or a poor decision.)
The Pew Research Center, which I consider one of the more reputable organizations that measure public opinion and behavior, has reported something that is, if you think about it, rather sad. 20 percent of young adults in America, the report says, learn their political campaign news from late night television shows such as the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Late Show with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, and others. Man oh man, talk about an uninformed electorate. One-fifth of the voting public cast their votes based on comedy and satire! I find that incredible. I find that disturbing.
Another 20 percent gathered their “news” from the Internet. The Internet can certainly be a source for credible information, to be sure, but it can also be a source for the absolute worst misinformation.
Nightly network news was named as a regular source of campaign news by 35 percent, newspapers by 31 percent, and 38 percent said cable news networks was a source for political campaign information.
Obviously there are overlaps in sources, which is understandable, since many people, myself included, use a myriad of sources to gather information and as a way to (hopefully) weed out misinformation.
But the article concludes as follows:
“Young adults were far more likely than those over age 50 to say they regularly learned something from comedy TV shows ? by 21 percent to 3 percent. In general, Americans are poorly informed on specific information about the campaign. Those who regularly learn about the campaigns from entertainment shows were even less informed.”
They “learned something from comedy TV shows”? Comedy TV shows?????? Sad, very sad indeed.
What do you think? What are your sources? Do you think the Internet is more a source of information or misinformation? Do you even consider the “comedy” shows at all? How many try to find the necessary “balance”?