PolitiFact shreds Jon Stewart’s Fox News misinformation claim

Joe Pompeo
·Media Reporter

"Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?" Jon Stewart asked Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend. "The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll."

Wrong! The truth-vetting project PolitiFact looked into the "Daily Show" host's sweeping claim since Wallace himself did not challenge it. It "found three surveys since 2007 that shed some light on how informed Fox viewers are compared to consumers of other media"--none of which ranked the Fox News audience at the bottom of the misinformation barrel, even if the network did score low in certain areas pertaining to accuracy.

"In several of the surveys, Fox isn't the lowest," PolitiFact concluded, "and other general-interest media outlets--such as network news shows, network morning shows and even the other cable news networks--often score similarly low. Meanwhile, particular Fox shows--such as The O'Reilly Factor and Sean Hannity's show--actually score consistently well, occasionally even outpacing Stewart's own audience."

You can read the entire study here and watch the clip with Wallace above.