‘FACTS’ CUT ALONG OUR BIAS
Truth gets washed out in spin cycle of opinions, beliefs
Former U.S. Sen. Daniel
Patrick Moynihan: “You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re not entitled to your own facts.” American voters: “Hold my beer.”
There are two groups of people in America today. One group that can’t believe the stupid (ahem) “stuff” other people think is true, and …
OK, there’s only one group of Americans. They think their opinions are facts and your facts are just opinions. Dumb ones.
In truth, a new survey by Pew Research finds most Americans can’t tell fact from spin. When given a list of five factual statements and five opinions, only 26 percent could pick out all the facts correctly. About the same number of American adults (aka “people who are actually allowed to vote”) got all of them wrong.
But it’s worse than that. If we were all just randomly clueless, that’s a problem solved by education. Unfortunately, people with a high level of interest in the news did about as badly as people with little interest. The culprit isn’t brains — it’s bias.
For example, if you think “spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid make up the largest portion of the U. S. Federal budget” is merely an opinion as opposed to fact, you’re probably a Democrat. Oh, and you’re wrong.
If, on the other hand, you think “President Barack Obama was born in the United States” is P.C. spin, you’re wrong, too. But you’re probably GOP.
This is what sociologists call “confirmation bias”— the willingness to believe information that confirms your opinions and discount data that challenges your beliefs. Democrats want to believe a $15 minimum wage is “essential for the health of our economy,” so almost 40 percent of them call it a fact.
In reality it’s a combination of progressive activism and proven economic idiocy. But it’s idiocy that has an audience. And this is the problem: Go on NPR or MSNBC and spout anti-Trump opinions all day long and millions of Americans will consider you their “news.” Flip the message and you can do the same on Fox.
Where is the constituency for fact reporting? For calling balls and strikes on people in power and leaving the politics out?
Yesterday, during a report on the current debate over charging illegal immigrants with a crime and separating them from their kids at the Mexican border, a CBS News “journalist” looked into the camera and said, “The Statue of Liberty is crying right now.”
Yeah, well I’m guessing Edward R. Murrow isn’t feeling too great right about now either … .