My friend and long-time co-seminarian at the Aspen Institute, James Beldock, recently posted an interesting piece on his blog about television news viewers’ factual misperceptions of stories by the major networks, ranking FOX News, CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, and CNN and comparing them all to the print media.  He wrote this following his participation in the Socrates Society July seminar on "Media and Our Values", led by former FCC chairman Michael Powell.

Three interesting takeaways for me from the post–

(1) FOX appears to make it most easy for viewers to draw incorrect conclusions about the facts;

(2) PBS appears to be the most factually correct in conveying reality to its viewers, even more correct than the print media;

(3) Let’s remember that FOX has many more viewers than PBS.  What’s wrong with this picture? 

I am sorry to have missed this year’s Socrates gathering due to my trip to the Middle East– I hear that the seminars were superb, as we expect them to be!

Related posts:

1. Am I My Brother’s Keeper? Stewardship of Media Content in the Internet Age
2. Re-Defining the Public Interest in the Media Torrent of the Internet
3. Aspen Ideas Festival—The Founding Fathers of Blogging Discuss the End of Media
4. Democracy in America Revisited, First of a Series
5. Is There a Valuation Bubble for Social Media Companies (and if so, is it Bursting)?

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