Notice anything wrong with these Fox “News” reported poll numbers?
That’s right, according to Fox, 120 percent of Americans have an opinion on global warming issues in the wake of stolen emails from climate scientists, and 94 percent of them believe it’s at least “somewhat likely” that those scientists falsified research while 26 percent feel otherwise. That’s tea bag math for ya.
Simon Malloy at Media Matters offers his best guess on how Fox “News” came up with their falsified numbers, though it’s also worth noting that out of 120 percent or more of Fox “News” viewers, not a single one of them has so far been able to identify, at least to us, a single stolen email that demonstrates the science of global warming is in any way inaccurate…
Fox, of course, has a very rich history of “mistakes” on on-screen graphics that, inevitably end up supporting Rightwingers and/or hurting Democrats in some fashion or another. (Here’s just a few and some others, though if anybody has a link to a more comprehensive page out there, we’ll update this link.) The BRAD BLOG was the first to report on one of their most infamous, when they labeled Republican Rep. Mark Foley as a “D” after it had been revealed that he sent sexually explicit emails to Congressional pages in the days leading up to the 2006 Election.
More recently, Fox has been caught falsifying video footage on the Hannity show to exaggerate the size of a Tea Bag demonstration in D.C. and using 2008 campaign footage to deceptively suggest huge crowds at book signing events for the celebrity community organizer Sarah Palin in the wake of her aborted first term as Alaska’s Governor.
Fox claims to have recently instituted a “zero tolerance” policy in response to such “mistakes” following the latest (of many similar) embarrassments, though we’d not advising holding your breath waiting for someone to actually be held accountable for this one, or any of them frankly.
Addendum… As we prepared to run this item, this just in, yet another new Fox “flub that conveniently hurts Democrats” as they “reduce Obama’s bank bailout savings by 99 percent”. See RAW STORY for details…
UPDATE 12/9/09: Well, so much for Fox’s “zero tolerance” policy. Apparently, zero also has a different value in tea bag math. So does “tolerance”.
Politico followed up, and Fox, like all liars and losers when caught, made excuses, rather than admit their error:
“We were just talking about three interesting pieces of information from Rasmussen,” Petterson said. “We didn’t put on the screen that it added up to 100 percent.”
That is, of course, nonsense, as Eric Boehlert offers context for the graphic in question, showing just how full of crap Petterson’s claim is. What a surprise.
Something about an OIL SHIEK from Saudi Arabia, telling us to stay on oil and there’s no such thing as Global Warming, strikes me as funny. He should at least take off his shiek attire when saying it. It would be like a guy with an Exxon-Mobil decal giving a news conference that we should stay on oil and there’s no such thing as Global Warming:
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/climategate-shakes-trust-scientists-saudi-arabia/
Do they think we’re stupid?
How about this:
Numerous environmental officials from the Bush administration have taken jobs lobbying on behalf of the energy industry, and some are now working to undermine efforts at a global climate change deal in Copenhagen, says a new report from a government watchdog group.
Some members of the Bush White House’s environmental team “deliberately distorted critical scientific reporting on global warming” before taking jobs at oil, gas, mining and other energy companies, says a report (PDF) from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“CREW identified at least 22 former Bush-era officials who have gone on to lobbying or government relations, 14 of whom are registered lobbyists,” the report states. “Through lobbying and industry-manufactured ‘grassroots’ activities, these individuals continue to influence and confuse the debate over global warming and hamper the efforts of the current administration to help establish a public consensus on this issue.”
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/bush-insiders-distorted-climate/
http://www.citizensforethics.org/files/20091207%20-%20SmokeScreen%20Final.pdf
OK, so let’s recap: THESE people are telling us there’s no such thing as Global Warming and to stay on Big Oil:
– Exxon-Mobil
– Bush administration officials
– Saudi Shieks
– Rush Limbaugh
– FOX “news
BD said @ 1:
I know, we’d never see that sort of thing in this country! 😉
Here, this guy too said we should stay on oil and Global Warming is a hoax:
http://www.hiddenpcmaster.com/wp-content/capt.ny89910271354.earns_exxon_mobil_ny899_01.jpg
“Shall we call it ‘OpinionGate’ just to make sure it’s a full blown ‘conspiracy’?”
Let’s go the Breitbart route and dramatically overreach. Let’s see, how about the Tea-Poll Dome Scandal? No? The Bay of Percentages? Maybe? Okay, the Opinion-Contra Affair?
It’s hard come up with something as clever as “Climaquiddick.” I mean, unless you’re really good at fart jokes.
Brad, the faulty math came directly from Rasmussen Reports
It appears that the intellectually challenged automatons at Fox News simply repeated the numbers.
I am curious as to who actually owns Rasmussen Reports. Not very impressive to have a polling company that cannot do simple math.
Some of the other numbers provided by the Rasmussen piece are troubling:
If that number is accurate, it means that the numbers who are misinformed far exceed Fox News wing-nut followers; that disinformation about global warming is widespread across the spectrum of the corporate owned media.
There’s nothing new in this.
Much was made, for example of a Le Moyne College/Zogby Poll released on February 28, 2006 poll’s revelation of the number 72, representing the percentage of troops serving in Iraq who felt the U.S. should withdraw within a year, the telling statistic is the number 85—the percentage of troops serving in Iraq who, at that late date, still believed the U.S. mission was intended “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacksâ€
The real utility of such opinion surveys is that they inform the corporate media on the relative success of their disinformation campaigns.
[ed note: Comment from previously banned commenter deleted. –99]
We’re seeing the power of the corporate media, right and center, just corporate owned media, on how they can make people believe something, anything they want. Ernest nails it when he says: “The real utility of such opinion surveys is that they inform the corporate media on the relative success of their disinformation campaigns. ”
That is dead-on. That’s exactly what is going on.
They could say there’s no such thing as gravity, and then a poll of Americans who don’t believe in gravity would go from 5% to 45%. The media is more powerful than an army.
And we have an OIL SHIEK from Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, in full shiek attire, saying he’s “shaken” about the recent hacked emails, which there is no focus on the hackers or the break-ins by the law and the media, mysteriously.
The OIL SHIEK is “shaken” at these recent revelations. The OIL SHIEK says, then we’ll have to stay on MY OIL!!! He was really going gung-ho with Global Warming when, SHUCKS! These emails were hacked into! Damn it! He was all FOR it and this ruined it! Now we’ll have to keep using is oil! Drat!!! He’s sick about the hacked emails.
You couldn’t write something funnier for Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report, or the Daily Show. The OIL SHIEK was all for it! And his dreams were shattered! He had already put a downpayment on an electic car! Shucks!!!
[ed note: Comment from previously banned commenter deleted. –99]
59% = “at least somewhat unlikely” (emphasis on “at least”)
Of that 59%:
a) 35% = “very likely”.
b) 24% = not “very likely”.
So…
35% = “very likely”
24% = not “very likely”, but “somewhat likely”
26% = “not very likely”
35 + 24 + 26 = 85.
It’s hardly falsification. It’s just a somewhat confusing way of stating statistics. Rasmussen is being confusing, and Fox is being misleading (albeit perhaps unintentionally).
Fox’s knee-jerk reaction was to re-publish juicy looking (but misleading) statistics, and Brad’s knee-jerk reaction was to hype Fox’s doing so as “falsification”. [Yawn.]
Parke, while there’s certainly merit in your breakdown vis-a-vis the original Rasmussen report, it doesn’t apply to Fox’s misrepresentation, which was Brad’s original target. Note that Fox conveniently omitted the qualifiers in the Rasmussen report, ie, “at least somewhat likely”.
If we’re gonna demand intellectual honesty, well, let’s demand it all around. 😉
You’re an f-ing idiot. They got those numbers directly from RasmussenReports.com (as SHOWN IN THE F-ING GRAPHIC), and the numbers are not misprinted. The 35 percent who say “Very Likely” is INSIDE the 59 percent who say “Somewhat Likely”.
Maybe if you f-ing MORONS would CHECK YOUR FACTS SOMETIMES, you would realize the OBVIOUS HOAX.
Re #10, #11
Wouldn’t the 59 % be “at least somewhat likely” rather than “at least somewhat unlikely”…where within that, there would, perhaps – 35% “very likely” and 24% “somewhat likely” (using ‘not “very likely”‘ as a subcategory of “somewhat likely” is a real stretch unless your intent was to fuck with people’s heads)
I mean, anyone with any understanding of basic probability and Venn diagrams should know that if this logic were imposed, “somewhat likely” would actually be a subcategory of ‘not “very likely”‘, meaning that 59% would be contained within 26%. Now that is true FOX logic.
And don’t fuck with me wingnuts, I teach this shit for a living. Any way you slice it, this is a bullshit stat presented by FOX, and they are either stupid (59% somewhat likely), deliberately deceptive (35% very likely) or made an innocent mistake (26% not likely). Now who’s the F-ing idiot?? And I’ve been drinking, too!!!
Here’s the Rasmussen poll:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/econ_survey_toplines/december_2009/toplines_climate_change_december_1_2_2009
It says (cut/paste right from Rasmussen):
3* In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?
35% Very likely
24% Somewhat likely
21% Not very likely
5% Not at all likely
15% Not sure
So, where are the wingnuts above getting that FOX “news” didn’t add 35 & 24 together themselves???
And why are they here in the first place? They like Brad Blog? Great!
They’re not monitoring Brad Blog, they “stumbled upon it”. Unique wingnuts happen to stumble upon Brad Blog regularly for each post.
Big Dan –
I didn’t even look at the Rasmussen poll, just at the Fox graphic presented above. I was just going off the hypotheses presented in #10 and #12 (sorry #11, I referenced your post before in error). Now that I see the breakdown presented by Big Dan from Rasmussen, the Fox deception is patently clear. No “oops, we showed the wring clip” defense there. Just plain old lying to stupid people. Right, Steve Albright? Once again, now who’s the F-ing idiot?
Speaking of number fudging, this whole site suggests that humans are responsible for global warming and that’s that!!
Yet, you won’t research how the numbers in Australia (Darwin) were fudged to show ‘warming’ and that NASA and CRU used those same numbers for their own purposes. If this had been election number fudging, Brad Blog would be all over it, now wouldn’t they.
And now we’re told, using those same faulty numbers that this has been the warmest decade since temperature monitoring began and that 1998 was the warmest year. But again, not true.
Lastly, you don’t mention THE DANISH TEXT (Google it) which shows there are very high level bankster interests behind this Copenhagen deal.
Can you show your bias any more forthrightly? Why don’t you just headline…BRAD BLOG believes humans are behind GLOBAL WARMING cause Al GORE said so.
You reap what you sow. You are not fair to any cause but those you are apparently emotionally tied to and there’s no truth if your opinion overrides everyone else’s. I continue to believe that BRAD BLOG will disappear from the blogosphere as it should, if you are going to be no more or less truthful and spin facts to suit agenda similarly to CNN or FOX. People come to the blogosphere for truth, investigation and unbiased reports. Brad Blog should cease to exist and I for one, will loudly trumpet it’s demise.
Parke @ 10:
You may not have been following the various threads here over the past week or so to understand the (mostly unspoken) reference to the nonsense of climate scientists have “falsified” their global warming data, as “revealed” by the stolen emails.
No such information was “revealed” by those emails, but it hasn’t stopped Fox and their friends here from asserting as much. Thus, the reference to Fox having “falsified” it’s global warming poll data — which is *far* more arguable than the nonsense of climate scientists having done so.
There’s your background. Hope it adds some light.
mark said
I continue to believe that BRAD BLOG will disappear from the blogosphere…
______________________
Given the Right’s ability to make hundreds of thousands of Kerry votes disappear, then reappear as Bush votes in 2004 as part of a classic middle man cyber hack, perhaps we should take this wing-nut’s threat seriously.
Then, again, perhaps we should just consider the source.
Big Dan, where you went directly to the Rasmussen poll numbers, I linked to Rasmussen Reports, which is where the 120% figures were provided. It is obvious that the incurious folks at Fox never went beyond the numbers provided in Rasmussen Reports so as to check them against the actual poll numbers you provided.
They were either too dishonest or too stupid to realize that the graphic they presented on-screen added up to 120%.
No amount of spin offered by Park Bostrom, comment #10 or Steve Albright #12, can erase the fact that the numbers on the on-screen graphic add up to 120. There is nothing in the on-screen graphic to suggest that “the 35 percent who say ‘Very Likely’ is INSIDE the 59 percent who say ‘Somewhat Likely'” — irrespective of Albright’s deceptive “spin” to the contrary.
Indeed, if Fox knew that the 35% was “inside” the 59% then they were deliberately deceptive in presenting an on-screen graphic which presents these as two “separate” numbers.
And, of course, a comparison between the Fox on-screen graphic and the actual Rasmussen poll numbers reflects that Fox left out the 15% who were “not sure.”
Rasmussen (aka ‘Republican’) Reports- conservative/right-wing/Republican bias has been established: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmussen_Reports#Criticism
Boy, some of the wingnuts dropping by here doth protest too loudly, methinks. Rasmussen’s press release contained the statement Canning copied at #6, which was misleading, but qualified; their poll results showed the actual breakdown numbers.
Faux News, as a number of people here have pointed out, including Brad in his post, put the misleading numbers on national TV w/o qualification. And Faux News has a history of promoting bogus info- Brad cited numerous examples in his post.
Anyone got any links to sites tracking the money and bias in the material being promoted by climate skeptics, debunking false claims, etc.?
fox noise was invented to turn every serious issue where corporate interests are at stake into He Said – She Said debates… if you turn an issue into ‘ a matter of opinion ‘ in every simple persons mind you have won, and no amount of substantiated data will change opinion..
ALL SCIENTISTS ( I disagree with ) LIE !! dontcha know?
they won’t ever ‘believe’ you or your ‘data’ because you have a bias just like THEY do… fox is there to reaffirm it’s viewers currently held beliefs and further the interests of rupert mudrocks friends, that is all..
if all you’ve ever heard is blow dry tv experts tongue lashing one another as if issue X was black and white you will think there is some ‘question’ still surrounding the issue. many still deny evolution exists even when evil scientists PROVE it is happening right before their eyes, fruit fly genetic inheritance experiments for example…
science more often than not serves a liberal agenda because that’s how liberals roll, with facts and research instead of firm beliefs..
MediaCurves.com conducted a study among 314 Americans viewing a news clip on the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Results found that the majority (72%) indicated that the United States should increase its efforts to prevent and prepare for climate change. After viewing the video, support for the statement that there is scientific evidence that the average temperature on the earth has been rising over the past few decades rose from 60% to 68% among viewers. More in depth results can be seen at:
http://www.mediacurves.com/Politics/J7672-ClimateChangeCopenhagen/Index.cfm Thanks,
Ben
Bottom line, the faux news Einsteins put on screen results from a poll that do not add up to 100 when probably every other poll result ever announced on any “news” channel in the known universe has done so. Just funny is all………..freakin’ hilarious, almost spit my tequila&fruit juice all over laptop. Then Jon in Iowa, oh man, good stuff, how long did those take you? Don’t even say right off the top a’yer head. Kudos for laughter.3
as opposed to “Kudos for Laughter” 1 or 2, both of which sucked and went straight to video.
Interesting point, Ben.
Rasmussen Reports, which is the source of the deceptive numbers that add up, on-screen to 120%, was founded by Scott Rasmussen. “Scott Rasmussen was a paid consultant for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign.”
When it comes to science, I am not sure how opinions even matter. You can hold all the opinions you may like yet they will never stand up against facts.
To think that all things have consequences yet many doubt that carbon polution has a worldly effect? Where most people born stupid?
Its sad to think that we most import our intellectuals anymore due to the fact that stupidity and obesity run so rampid here in America.
I apologize for the lack of grammar as it holds no importance to me, although i do try.
Thank you.
I’ve been waiting for someone to point out that people’s opinions have bubkes to do with actuality.
Just brilliant how people continue to scrap over differing delusions anyway….