A reader protests:
Jon Stewart was not wrong. He never mentioned that Fox viewers were UNinformed, but MISinformed and even their own study showed in MISperceptions Fox viewers suffered the worst. That study only is relevant to a small part of what Stewart was saying, and in that part Stewart is 100% correct. And Gillespie's article deals with being UNinformed exclusively. WHIFF!
Note: several capital letters were removed from this email. Read the full Politifact piece, which does address the un- versus mis- distinction. On some critical issues, especially before the Iraq war, Fox clearly did actively misinform its viewers. But the data are nuanced. Money quote:
The way Stewart phrased the comment, it’s not enough to show a sliver of evidence that Fox News’ audience is ill-informed. The evidence needs to support the view that the data shows they are "consistently" misinformed — a term he used not once but three times. It’s simply not true that "every poll" shows that result. So we rate his claim False.
The Dish 