There’s a saying among lawyers: “When you have the law on your side, pound the law. When you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. When you have neither, pound the table.”
With that in mind, consider the late 2010 study that said people who watch TV news were were more likely to be misinformed than others about basic facts related to issues highlighted in the midterm elections. While lots of news organizations were dinged, Fox News viewers were lower than others.
The New York Times, in reporting about the findings, dutifully asked Fox News for comment about the research report.* The response from Michael Clemente, the network’s senior vice president of news editorial:
The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.
A question for PR students: Is that an ethical response to a question? (You don’t have to be a Maryland student to answer.)
* Fox did respond more fully in an opinion piece claiming that the Maryland questions had a partisan bias. MediaMatters criticized the response. It’s worth noting that neither of the two mentioned that the researchers found similar problems for folks who watched the more liberal MSNBC.