Nobody's So Smart Here

No doubt you'll be seeing something about a recent study showing people watching Fox News for their information are worse-informed than people with no exposure to any (well, at least electronic) news source. It's good for a quick snicker from some people and a bunch of steam from others. The deeper story is that nobody look particularly smart in this.

The study from Fairleigh Dickenson University asked eight current events questions -- four on domestic issues, four on international news -- to get a feel of how certain groups would likely answer them. And, yes, the people watching Fox News ranked the lowest in average number of correct answers, and those listening to National Public Radio came out on top.

Here's the problem: For either the international or domestic questions, no group hit a mark of 40% correct. Yeah, that's right; even the NPR group hit only three of eight. Overall, only 3% managed to get eight questions correct, and another 11% hit seven right.

Basically, no group  won out in pass/fail. There's not a lot of joy in declaring that you're the least stupid.

Wondering about those questions? Here they are, grouped by topic (they were in mixed order for the actual survey. Note that many of them are open-ended, and not multiple-choice ... meaning that you actually had to come up with your own answer and not guess.

INTERNATIONAL

1. To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in removing Hosni Mubarak?

2. How about the opposition groups in Syria? Have they been successful in removing Bashar al-Assad?

3. Some countries in Europe are deeply in debt, and have had to be bailed out by other countries. To the best of your knowledge, which country has had to spend the most money to bail out European countries?

4. There have been increasing talks about economic sanctions against Iran. What are these sanctions supposed to do?

DOMESTIC (depending on party affiliation, different #2 questions were asked). 

1. Which party has the most seats in the House of Representatives right now?

2a. In December, House Republicans agreed to a short-term extension of a payroll tax cut, but only if President Obama agreed to do what?

2b. It took a long time to get the final results of the Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates. In the end, who was declared the winner? 

3. How about the New Hampshire Primary? Which Republican won that race?

4. According to the figures, about what percentage of Americans are currently unemployed? 

If you want to see the study, go here. It's pretty stunning to see the question that 30% of those "leaning Republican" and 28% of those as independent (and 11% of Democrats) got absolutely wrong.