Fox News - The BEST News Channel

[bedub1]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/ ... 3R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

[Symmetry]

Al-Jazeera, anyone who says otherwise hasn't watched it. The BBC is good, but a bit tame sometimes when they try to maintain neutrality.

[BigBallinStalin]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-foxnews-idUSTRE78I63R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

How many young people own a land line these days?

Dishonest statistic is dishonest...


And yeah, +1 for Al-Jazeera.

[bedub1]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-foxnews-idUSTRE78I63R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

How many young people own a land line these days?

Dishonest statistic is dishonest...

Based upon your statement every single poll/statistic is dishonest.

[Symmetry]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-foxnews-idUSTRE78I63R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

How many young people own a land line these days?

Dishonest statistic is dishonest...

Based upon your statement every single poll/statistic is dishonest.

I don't trust your conclusion on this based on a single statement.

Did you even take into account responders to the question? Two out of three people in this thread say that that Al-Jazeera is the best. That's 100% of respondents.

[Pirlo]

Sarkozy, or whatever his name is spelled, also believes that Al-Jazeera is the best. the International version of Al-Jazeera is believed to be great. however, the Arabic version, which is the origin, is terrible IMO, too biased. it doesn't deny its bias though!

[bedub1]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-foxnews-idUSTRE78I63R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

How many young people own a land line these days?

Dishonest statistic is dishonest...

Based upon your statement every single poll/statistic is dishonest.

I don't trust your conclusion on this based on a single statement.

Did you even take into account responders to the question? Two out of three people in this thread say that that Al-Jazeera is the best. That's 100% of respondents.

It looks to me like the polling is split 50-50 in Fox's favor...

[Woodruff]

Al-Jazeera, anyone who says otherwise hasn't watched it.

Yes.

[BigBallinStalin]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-foxnews-idUSTRE78I63R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

How many young people own a land line these days?

Dishonest statistic is dishonest...

Based upon your statement every single poll/statistic is dishonest.

Can you "create the dotted line" between the answer of my question to my conclusion?

[BigBallinStalin]

Sarkozy, or whatever his name is spelled, also believes that Al-Jazeera is the best. the International version of Al-Jazeera is believed to be great. however, the Arabic version, which is the origin, is terrible IMO, too biased. it doesn't deny its bias though!

Wow, that surprises me because Al-Jazeera does a very good--at least, for me, I only watch the 30-minute panel discussions between foreign policy analysts and what have you.

[bedub1]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-foxnews-idUSTRE78I63R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

How many young people own a land line these days?

Dishonest statistic is dishonest...

Based upon your statement every single poll/statistic is dishonest.

Can you "create the dotted line" between the answer of my question to my conclusion?

I don't follow what you mean. But I understand what you are saying about the poll. It was probably conducted via the landline telephone system to Americans. It's not a poll of the world, and probably didn't involve things like cell phones, text messaging, online polls etc.

[BigBallinStalin]

How many young people own a land line these days?

Dishonest statistic is dishonest...

Based upon your statement every single poll/statistic is dishonest.

Can you "create the dotted line" between the answer of my question to my conclusion?

I don't follow what you mean. But I understand what you are saying about the poll. It was probably conducted via the landline telephone system to Americans. It's not a poll of the world, and probably didn't involve things like cell phones, text messaging, online polls etc.

And since it doesn't include those target markets, then the only people polled are those who tend to use land lines and are probably around their house enough to receive the call (i.e. old people who have nothing better to do, other than sitting around the house). So, the results are very limited in scope.

Therefore, the "new national poll" is mostly rubbish and is misleading because the scope of their statistics is confined to a small segment of the national population--and not the nation itself.

That's why I say that the statistics are dishonest.

[Mr_Adams]

Fox used to be the best. for a short time. Now they are as biased as any other. I prefer CNN. Is Al-Jazeera online?

[Dibbun]

I'm sick of CNN always trying to make me feel. I really don't give a shit about who's black in America, hispanic in America, gay in America, because we're all fucking uneducated in America because almost all of our news outlets are lazy, sensationalist partisan pricks who market their product on guilt, fear, and/or jingoism.

+1 for Fox News for having hot anchors who occasionally flash their panties - like Gretchen Carlson who I love. Oh god, I'm one of them, one of the stupid Americans...

[bedub1]

And since it doesn't include those target markets, then the only people polled are those who tend to use land lines and are probably around their house enough to receive the call (i.e. old people who have nothing better to do, other than sitting around the house). So, the results are very limited in scope.

Therefore, the "new national poll" is mostly rubbish and is misleading because the scope of their statistics is confined to a small segment of the national population--and not the nation itself.

That's why I say that the statistics are dishonest.

I follow. Which is why I said then all statistics are dishonest. Because no poll will poll people with land lines, and cell phones, and internet only, and the homeless without any phones etc etc etc.

Wikipedia refers to this as Coverage Bias:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_poll

I'm not going to argue about the poll being invalid, because then every poll is invalid.

Coverage bias

Another source of error is the use of samples that are not representative of the population as a consequence of the methodology used, as was the experience of the Literary Digest in 1936. For example, telephone sampling has a built-in error because in many times and places, those with telephones have generally been richer than those without.

In some places many people have only mobile telephones. Because pollsters cannot call mobile phones (it is unlawful in the United States to make unsolicited calls to phones where the phone's owner may be charged simply for taking a call), these individuals will never be included in the polling sample. If the subset of the population without cell phones differs markedly from the rest of the population, these differences can skew the results of the poll. Polling organizations have developed many weighting techniques to help overcome these deficiencies, to varying degrees of success. Studies of mobile phone users by the Pew Research Center in the US concluded that "cell-only respondents are different from landline respondents in important ways, (but) they were neither numerous enough nor different enough on the questions we examined to produce a significant change in overall general population survey estimates when included with the landline samples and weighted according to US Census parameters on basic demographic characteristics."[12]

This issue was first identified in 2004,[13] but came to prominence only during the 2008 US presidential election.[14] In previous elections, the proportion of the general population using cell phones was small, but as this proportion has increased, the worry is that polling only landlines is no longer representative of the general population. In 2003, a 2.9% of households were wireless (cellphones only) compared to 12.8 in 2006.[15] This results in "coverage error". Many polling organisations select their sample by dialling random telephone numbers; however, there is a clear tendency for polls which included mobile phones in their sample to show a much larger lead for Obama than polls that did not.[16][17]

The potential sources of bias are:[18]

Some households use cellphones only and have no landline. This tends to include minorities and younger voters; and occurs more frequently in metropolitan areas. Men are more likely to be cellphone-only compared to women.
Some people may not be contactable by landline from Monday to Friday and may be contactable only by cellphone.
Some people use their landlines only to access the Internet, and answer calls only to their cellphones.

Some polling companies have attempted to get around that problem by including a "cellphone supplement". There are a number of problems with including cellphones in a telephone poll:

It is difficult to get co-operation from cellphone users, because in many parts of the US, users are charged for both outgoing and incoming calls. That means that pollsters have had to offer financial compensation to gain co-operation.
US federal law prohibits the use of automated dialling devices to call cellphones (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991). Numbers therefore have to be dialled by hand, which is more time-consuming and expensive for pollsters.

An oft-quoted example of opinion polls succumbing to errors was the UK General Election of 1992. Despite the polling organizations using different methodologies virtually all the polls in the lead up to the vote, and to a lesser extent exit polls taken on voting day, showed a lead for the opposition Labour party but the actual vote gave a clear victory to the ruling Conservative party.

In their deliberations after this embarrassment the pollsters advanced several ideas to account for their errors, including:

Late swing
Voters who changed their minds shortly before voting tended to favour the Conservatives, so the error was not as great as it first appeared.
Nonresponse bias
Conservative voters were less likely to participate in surveys than in the past and were thus under-represented.
The Shy Tory Factor
The Conservatives had suffered a sustained period of unpopularity as a result of economic difficulties and a series of minor scandals, leading to a spiral of silence in which some Conservative supporters were reluctant to disclose their sincere intentions to pollsters.

The relative importance of these factors was, and remains, a matter of controversy, but since then the polling organizations have adjusted their methodologies and have achieved more accurate results in subsequent elections.

[Mr_Adams]

I'm sick of CNN always trying to make me feel. I really don't give a shit about who's black in America, hispanic in America, gay in America, because we're all fucking uneducated in America because almost all of our news outlets are lazy, sensationalist partisan pricks who market their product on guilt, fear, and/or jingoism.

+1 for Fox News for having hot anchors who occasionally flash their panties - like Gretchen Carlson who I love. Oh god, I'm one of them, one of the stupid Americans...

I only watch the cover stories, and then am done Couldn't care less about specials, and totally agree with you on the Black/Gay/Hispanic/pandered to minority in America.

[BigBallinStalin]

And since it doesn't include those target markets, then the only people polled are those who tend to use land lines and are probably around their house enough to receive the call (i.e. old people who have nothing better to do, other than sitting around the house). So, the results are very limited in scope.

Therefore, the "new national poll" is mostly rubbish and is misleading because the scope of their statistics is confined to a small segment of the national population--and not the nation itself.

That's why I say that the statistics are dishonest.

I follow. Which is why I said then all statistics are dishonest. Because no poll will poll people with land lines, and cell phones, and internet only, and the homeless without any phones etc etc etc.

Wikipedia refers to this as Coverage Bias:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_poll

I'm not going to argue about the poll being invalid, because then every poll is invalid.

But nearly all of them are.

Sure, certain means can be taken to provide a wider demographic across a sample population; however, all poll-statistics that you encounter should be discounted for inaccuracy.

Don't get me wrong. They're useful, but not 100% accurate. As I learned more about this, I could provide myself better estimates of their accuracy, so it just takes time and awareness.

[rdsrds2120]

Polls can be accurate within context. For example, saying that "36.1% of Americans (there should be a margin of error too, but w/e) that use a landline in (then state the geographical area surveyed) agree that Fox News is the best news network"

Polls and surveys can be useful if done correctly. One of the biggest problems with most companies and polls is that they don't realize how misleading (or they do, and take advantage of) the 'polls' that they conduct are.

Hurrah for inferential stats.

-rd

[Phatscotty]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/19/us-foxnews-idUSTRE78I63R20110919

The ratings have long demonstrated that Fox News is the most popular cable news network, but a new national poll suggests that Americans think it is also the best.

In a telephone survey conducted by Poll Position, a newly launched non-partisan polling site, 36.1 percent of respondents chose Fox as the "best," compared to 27.8 percent for CNN and 16.6 percent for MSNBC.

MSNBC got 16%? I thought Progressives made up 18% of the population. Pretty close, but it still wreaks of political choice. I like Dylan Ratigan's economics and a few other people, but mostly MSNBC is pretty crappy as far as "news". Fox is not the same since Beck left and I barely ever watch Fox. For some reason I am mostly watching CNN.

[Phatscotty]

And since it doesn't include those target markets, then the only people polled are those who tend to use land lines and are probably around their house enough to receive the call (i.e. old people who have nothing better to do, other than sitting around the house). So, the results are very limited in scope.

Therefore, the "new national poll" is mostly rubbish and is misleading because the scope of their statistics is confined to a small segment of the national population--and not the nation itself.

That's why I say that the statistics are dishonest.

Yeah, but aren't the people who sit around their house all the time the ones who probably watch the most TV? No comment on stats.

[Mr_Adams]

Haha, did you guys see the poll on the GOP candidates, about 2 months ago, that Bill O'reilly put up? Bill hates Ron Paul, and Ron Paul won in a land slide.

[BigBallinStalin]

And since it doesn't include those target markets, then the only people polled are those who tend to use land lines and are probably around their house enough to receive the call (i.e. old people who have nothing better to do, other than sitting around the house). So, the results are very limited in scope.

Therefore, the "new national poll" is mostly rubbish and is misleading because the scope of their statistics is confined to a small segment of the national population--and not the nation itself.

That's why I say that the statistics are dishonest.

Yeah, but aren't the people who sit around their house all the time the ones who probably watch the most TV? No comment on stats.

They could be, but how many do they amount to of the sample population? And how are they different from those who don't watch a large amount of TV but watch mainstream media? Who knows!

[bedub1]

Al Jazeera huh?

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news ... ar-resigns

Al Jazeera's top news director Wadah Khanfar resigned Tuesday after eight years as the network's top executive. The move came after a WikiLeaks cable suggested that Khanfar changed the network's coverage of the Iraq War as a result of U.S. pressure, The New York Times reports.

[djak.]

Misperceptions, the media and the Iraq war http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/oct03/IraqMedia_Oct03_rpt.pdf

Frequency of misperceptions: evidence of al-Qaeda links, WMD found, world public opinion favorable. Respondents with one or more misperceptions by how they get their news:
80% Fox
71% CBS
61% ABC
55% NBC
55% CNN
47% Print media
23% PBS-NPR
[page 13]

Respondents with misperceptions of evidence of links between Iraq and al-Qaeda:
67% Fox
56% CBS
49% NBC
48% CNN
45% ABC
40% Print media
16% PBS-NPR
[page 13]

Respondents with misperceptions that US found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction:
33% Fox
23% CBS
20% NBC
20% CNN
19% ABC
17% Print media
11% PBS-NPR
[page 14]

Respondents with misperceptions that the majority of people in the world favored the US going to war in Iraq:
35% Fox News
28% CBS
27% ABC
24% CNN
20% NBC
17% Print media
5% PBS-NPR
[page 15]

Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media, and to some extent those who primarily watch CNN, have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention.
[page 16]

[BigBallinStalin]

I wonder: what are the demographics of print media consumers...?

How much different is that target market from TV's mainstream media viewers?