In his latest column, Bill O’Reilly bemoans the fact that today’s young people (and middle-aged people and many old people ; also, smart people) don’t get all their news from him.
Let’s join Bill’s rant, already in progress:
Machines are part of the reason Americans continue to be ill-informed. Younger people, especially, spend hours in front of the computer, playing games and engaging in idle chat. When they do get their butts up off the chair, they slap on iPods and have sound piped directly into their brains. Tiring of that, they flick on the tube and watch a variety of mind-numbing “reality” shows.The result: According to a survey done by National Geographic, 63% of Americans ages 18 to 24 can’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. And, incredibly, 25% of that age could not even identify Dick Cheney as Vice President.
I too blame iPods and “American Idol” for the fact that kids today think a “Dick Cheney” is some sort of dildo.
Research shows that news consumption amongst Americans under the age of 50 is drastically declining. TV news ratings skew old, and newspaper circulation is generally plummeting. One explanation is that Americans can now get the news online. Okay, fine
Thanks, Bill, for giving me your permission to get my news from a source other than Fox. That was mighty big of you!
But those Internet headlines barely skim the surface of complicated matters, and many websites have absolutely no editorial standards. They print rank propaganda and libel all day long.
Yeah! Damn websites, printing libel 24/7! Why, back in my day, sleazy news sources could only print rank propaganda during regular office hours. And we liked it that way!
(BTW, when Bill talks about websites that print libel all day long, I’m pretty sure he means sites such as MediaMatters and Crooks & Liars. You know, sites that report what Bill says, in his own words.)
But anyway, Bill is probably right about how Internet headlines barely skim the surface of stuff. For instance, here are some recent NewsMax headlines which fail to do justice to complicated matters. (NewsMax is kind enough to email me with their headlines, so I never have to even visit their site stay informed. I just skim the headlines and get all the news I need, just like Bill said!):
–Tiger Woods: Bill Clinton Cheats at Golf, Too
From this I gather that Tiger has been caught cheating at golf, and is using the standard wingnut defense of blaming his moral lapse on Bill Clinton’s bad example. (Hey, if you can get people to believe that nobody had oral sex before 1998, then you can blame anything on Bill Clinton.)
–Ann Coulter: Go Ahead, Make My Day
Apparently Dirty Ann Coulter is off her meds and is gunning down punks, Arabs, and liberals.
–Schwarzenegger: ‘No’ Gay Textbooks
Arnold believes that textbooks are ‘asexual’?
–Ann Coulter Gone Wild
Ann is now flashing her breasts at innocent bystanders in an effort to sell her book.
–Jeb Bush to Sign ‘Dining With Dogs’ Bill
In a bid to show that he’s made of presidential timber, Jeb signs a bill making it mandatory for Rick Santorum to at least buy dinner for Fido before he has sex with him.
Of course, some headlines do demand that one read the story. For instance:
–Peter King: I’ll Probe CIA ‘Orgies’–Minuteman Border Fence–John Stossel: Not Afraid to Tell the Truth
So, we’ll read those stories tomorrow (I’d share them with you today, but I need to get some sleep before the next kitten feeding).
But hey, for now, let’s let Bill O’Reilly finish up his rant.
The USA used to be a nation that valued knowledge and rallied around national standards. Now we have become Balkanized�each of us can easily create individual electronic fantasy worlds. Why face a world full of terror and confusing angst when you can drift off into iPod land?
We need to get off the Internet and become as informed as Bill is about important matters such as the Malmedy massacre.
(Oh, and in Thursday’s Talking Point Memo, Bill blames the Internet for making kids less safe than they’ve ever been before. He accuses it of having “demolished boundaries in this country,” thus making “abhorrent behavior” normal. So, I guess it was the Internet that made him have phone sex with his employees and threaten them with falafel showers. Well, the Internet and Bill Clinton.
In any case, we should all try to emulate Bill, and become more informed and moral and such.
12 Responses to “Bill O’Reilly Accuses Everyone Else of Being Uninformed”
Wait! Wait!
Machines are to blame for the dumbing down of America?
And not Republican budget cuts to education?
ROFLMAO!
Al Franken once likened Rush Limbaugh to the “clown car” of American politics, you know, like when the tiger mauls his trainer at a performance so they send out the clown car to distract everyone.
Bill O’Reilly is driving the car.
Machines are to blame for the dumbing down of America?
And not Republican budget cuts to education?
ROFLMAO!
Al Franken once likened Rush Limbaugh to the “clown car” of American politics, you know, like when the tiger mauls his trainer at a performance so they send out the clown car to distract everyone.
Bill O’Reilly is driving the car.
I’ve been writing for a partisan libel site for more than a year now, and Soros still hasn’t sent me one damn check. Effin’ deadbeat.
“Many websites . . . print rank propaganda. . . all day long.” But since Fox broadcasts plain old propaganda, not rank propaganda, all day long that make it okay.
I guess Bill considers television to be one of those infernal machines that are dumbing down our youth:
an October 2003 study conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy (PIPA) found Fox News viewers were “significantly more likely to have misperceptions” about the Iraq war than all other media consumers…of the “three key misperceptions” — which the study listed as “the beliefs that … links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq” — Fox News watchers were found not only to be the “most likely to hold misperceptions,” but “were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions.”
Damn proles were a lot easier to manage before all this high-falutin’ electronic communication. And don’t even get me startedon the printing press! Why, this country won’t be a fit place to live in again until the great unwashed are getting all their news from semaphore flags and the town crier!
an October 2003 study conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy (PIPA) found Fox News viewers were “significantly more likely to have misperceptions” about the Iraq war than all other media consumers…of the “three key misperceptions” — which the study listed as “the beliefs that … links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq” — Fox News watchers were found not only to be the “most likely to hold misperceptions,” but “were more than twice as likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions.”
Damn proles were a lot easier to manage before all this high-falutin’ electronic communication. And don’t even get me startedon the printing press! Why, this country won’t be a fit place to live in again until the great unwashed are getting all their news from semaphore flags and the town crier!
Machines are part of the reason Americans continue to be ill-informed. Younger people, especially, spend hours in front of the computer, playing games and engaging in idle chat. When they do get their butts up off the chair, they slap on iPods and have sound piped directly into their brains. Tiring of that, they flick on the tube and watch a variety of mind-numbing �reality� shows.
Haha, he sounds like my dad.
Gee whiz, I don’t suppose the emphasis on dismantling science in favor of religion has anything to do with kids not knowing things.
Haha, he sounds like my dad.
Gee whiz, I don’t suppose the emphasis on dismantling science in favor of religion has anything to do with kids not knowing things.
I’d just like to note that three or four years ago, when Bush’s approval numbers were riding high, BIll had nothing but admiration for the average American’s grasp of the news.
Oh, and why do they never give those geography tests to anyone over thirty? Once you approach middle age you’re suddenly exempt from the supposed consequences of your inability to point to Manitoba. Yet I’ll bet the percentages are much the same. And while it’s likely that most Americans 18-24 can’t name the major divisions of Islam, the sum of that inability doesn’t matter 1/10,000th as much as their President’s similar deficit.
Oh, and why do they never give those geography tests to anyone over thirty? Once you approach middle age you’re suddenly exempt from the supposed consequences of your inability to point to Manitoba. Yet I’ll bet the percentages are much the same. And while it’s likely that most Americans 18-24 can’t name the major divisions of Islam, the sum of that inability doesn’t matter 1/10,000th as much as their President’s similar deficit.
kids today think a �Dick Cheney� is some sort of dildo.
or a tool
Ann is now flashing her breasts at innocent bystanders in an effort to sell her book.
or she could be advertising for the surgeons doing her transgender work so she can get a discount on the next operation
or a tool
Ann is now flashing her breasts at innocent bystanders in an effort to sell her book.
or she could be advertising for the surgeons doing her transgender work so she can get a discount on the next operation
I meet a girl last year at school who didn’t know who the Vice President was. Also, one of my sister’s classmates confused Colin Powell with Gorbachev (!?).
Also, these MediaMatters kids today, they just won’t keep off the damned lawn.
Really, it’s more than possible that people identified Cheney as the president. I’m willing to give them at least half-credit for that.
Also, a confession. Once upon a time I was asked to find Canada on a map. I immediately pointed to Mexico. Ask a stupid question, man. I would bet that if you ask teenagers idiotic questions, you will often get deliberately idiotic responses.
Really, it’s more than possible that people identified Cheney as the president. I’m willing to give them at least half-credit for that.
Also, a confession. Once upon a time I was asked to find Canada on a map. I immediately pointed to Mexico. Ask a stupid question, man. I would bet that if you ask teenagers idiotic questions, you will often get deliberately idiotic responses.
The “geography test” bit is kinda interesting, because how well I would do on it would depend on how it was conducted. If you just showed the unlabeled outline of a country, out of context (no surrounding countries shown or labeled) and said, “Which country is this?” I would quite often get it wrong. I mean, can you identify an outline of Laos or Lithuania? OTOH, if the test were to find a list of countries on a normal map, I would score quite well–I know, in general, where stuff is. If the test were somewhere in between, such as a map with unlabeled countries–fill in their names, I would do somewhere in between. Still, I suspect that I would do better than many people, since I don’t think New Mexico is part of Mexico, for example.
I wonder if Falafel Man is aware that if people were as well-informed as he purports to wish, there’s no way that the far-right agenda could possibly survive?
Be careful what you wish for, Bill-o.
Be careful what you wish for, Bill-o.
each of us can easily create individual electronic fantasy worlds.Loofah Bill complaining about fantasy worlds. Irony is truely dead.
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