Study: Politics sway the ‘news’ we believe
The vast majority of Americans are unable to tell the difference between facts and opinion, according to survey results released yesterday by the Pew Research Center.
The survey found that both Republicans and Democrats are more likely to think news statements are factual when they appeal to their side — even if they are opinions. Americans overwhelmingly see statements they think are factual as accurate, and mostly disagree with factual statements they incorrectly label as opinions.
The survey of 5,035 U.S. adults asked them to identify how many of five factual statements were facts, and how many of five opinion statements were opinions. A fact was considered something that could be “proved or disproved by objective evidence — or as an opinion that reflects the beliefs and values of whoever expressed it,” the report said.
Most failed — roughly three-quarters of respondents got most or all wrong. Only 26 percent were able to correctly classify all five factual statements; 35 percent could identify all five opinion statements. Those numbers rose by about 10 percent each for respondents with “high political awareness,” “digital savviness” and “news trust.”
“Political awareness” was defined as “those who are knowledgeable about politics and regularly get political news.” They identified all five facts correctly by a 36-17 margin.
“Digital savviness” was defined as “those who are highly confident in using digital devices and regularly use the internet.” They fared better by a 44-21 margin.
Respondents who trusted their national news sources were better able to distinguish facts by a 39-18 margin.
To conduct the test, respondents were given a series of statements and asked to classify them as fact or opinion. For example, the opinion statement “Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is essential for the health of the U.S. economy” was ranked as factual by 37 percent of Democrats, while only about 17 percent of Republicans said so. The factual statement “Barack Obama was born in the U.S.” was identified as so by 89 percent of Democrats, but only 63 percent of Republicans.