Jon Stewart Debunked: Claim that FOX News Viewers 'Most Consistently Misinformed' is 'False

Jon Stewart may be in for a reality check. Earlier this week, we covered his epic battle royale with FOX News' Chris Wallace. Now, following the dialogue, a prominent watchdog is debunking one of the comedian's anti-conservative statements. According to PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking web site, Stewart's recent claim that FOX viewers are consistently the most misinformed simply isn't true.

In his interview with Wallace, the comedian asked, "Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?" Then, he answered himself, saying, "The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll." Sadly for Stewart, this simply isn't true. PolitiFact, though, found this comment to be "false:"

We found two polling organizations that have produced periodic "knowledge" surveys differentiated by the respondent’s frequent news sources. One is the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, and the other is worldpublicopinion.org, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland...

Viewers of at least one show on Fox scored quite well -- The O’Reilly Factor, of whom 51 percent made it into the high knowledge group. That made it equal to National Public Radio -- a longtime target of conservative complaints about liberal media bias -- and only three percentage points behind Stewart’s own show, at 54 percent...

You can read the rest of PolitiFact's analysis here.

This is not the first time that a liberal commentator or institution has claimed that FOX News viewers are less knowledgeable about current affairs. Back in December, The Blaze covered a University of Maryland study (“Misinformation and the 2010 Election: A Study of the US Electorate”) that came to similar conclusions. According to Meredith Jessup:

[The study] looked to judge how likely viewers of various news outlets were to believe false information (note: the study did not actually measure any sort of actual misinformation presented by some media outlets). According to the study, Fox viewers were “significantly more likely” to believe the following “misinformation”

That same month, The Blaze's Jon Seidl reported that Competitive Enterprise Institute Communications Director, and licensed lawyer, Lee Doren had released a short video expose that exposed serious flaws in the aforementioned study. In the end, Doren contended that the findings were bogus. It seems, based on PolitiFact's corroboratory information, that he may be correct.

Sorry, Stewart. Better luck next time.

(h/t Mediaite)