Interesting Drudge headline

[motivez]

FLASH: FOXNEWS O'REILLY TOPS MSNBC GOP DEBATE FOR NIGHT... O'REILLY PULLS 2,314,000 VIEWERS... DEBATE SCORES 1,762,000... [DEM DEBATE WEEK BEFORE HIT 2,261,000]... FOXNEWS HANNITY/COLMES AT 1,548,000... MORE

ACTUAL DEBATE COVERAGE: 8-9:30PM:

FNC 2,023,000
MSNBC 1,762,000
CNN 599,000

More people watched FOXNEWS TALKING about debate than the actual DEBATE!

I thought this was interesting and fairly telling about what I find to be a large problem in our society.. people relying on others to tell them what to know instead of making an effort to learn and make decisions themselves.

It's not a shock to me that Fox continues to get such high ratings, combining entertainment and news is always going to be more interesting than just the news.

Also, considering what we know about Fox viewers knowledge of current events, reality and fact based information (when it came to things like Iraq & Al Qaeda connections, WMD's, and so forth in the run up to the war in Iraq), it's not really a shocker (though I do find it sad) that such a large number of their viewers decided it was more important to watch the partisan hackery of Fox pundits than it was to hear what a candidate had to say for themselves.

We need to get people interested in being informed about what is (for many) a pretty boring subject, and to start looking for information for themselves first hand, instead of relying on a television personality with an agenda to give them their opinions for them.

But what can we do to fix it?

[JaJae]

The same thing likely would have happened if Fox held the Democratic debate.

[JaJae]

USA Today (5/7): "The O'Reilly Factor is the most-watched cable news show, with close to 3 million nightly viewers. Fox News also boasts the five top-rated cable business shows."

From mediamatters.org

O'Rielly typically gets over 2 million viewers a night. How many people watched the Democratic debates? Do we have numbers on that?

[JaJae]

Found the numbers, Democratic debates pulled in 2.2 million viewers.
mediabistro.com: TVNewser

How many would have watched if the debates were on Fox? Fox had it's normal viewers for the night. I guess we'll never know the answer to that question.

[motivez]

I fail to see how the "but zomg! ze liberales!" mentality has anything to do with what I asked, but yeah, I guess not.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

I fail to see how the "but zomg! ze liberales!" mentality has anything to do with what I asked, but yeah, I guess not.

Well the argument in the OP was that Fox News viewers are ignorant, and don't watch the debate more than they watched the opinion shows. I'm just saying their viewers for the evening didn't change. Did any other news outlet have different ratings during the Democratic debate that would signify Fox viewers are more ignorant? A connection is being drawn without all the stats.

I'm just saying I don't see enough of a difference that would lead me to start bashing Fox viewers. Although I agree, more people should be watching these debates over opinion shows. Then again the debate itself could probably have been considered an opinion show on its own the way MSNBC handled it, which might have had something to do with people tuning out.

[motivez]

Considering what we know about people who use Fox as their primary source of news (ie: believing things that are blatantly false in spite of overwhelming evidence contrary to what the station has told them), it's not about bashing, it's just a simple fact.

The Drudge headline indicated the time during the actual debate itself, not pre or post debate analysis.. so it's not about the number of nightly viewers on average..

Of course the debate was an opinion show, it highlighted the opinions of the Republican candidates for President on current events, etc.

And as far as what happened during the Democratic debate, well, I wouldn't expect most Fox viewers to care too much about that at this point.

[Kytro]

I am not sure about the media in the US, I don't have a great deal of exposure to it. In Australia I find the media to be quite sensationalist. I don't really watch television (I get my media via the internet, most of the time, including news).

One TV program I download is the ABC's (Australia) The Chasers war on everything. They sometimes pull segments from FOX to poke fun at and while I realise this is an extreme example i cannot believe what passes for news.