Fox News successfully creates climate confusion, but only among conservatives "Now, some academics have done an exhaustive evaluation of Fox broadcasts (along with those of CNN and NBC) and demonstrated that there is a systematic bias against presenting the scientific community's conclusions on Fox. And, at least among those with a conservative bent, it works. These viewers are far less likely to understand the state of the science, or even accept the reality that our planet has gotten warmer."
Nice to have evidence backing one's beliefs.
"There was a very clear pattern. "Although Fox discussed climate change most often, the tone of its coverage was disproportionately dismissive," the authors concluded. The dismissiveness was present in almost every category. A third of Fox's broadcasts rejected the reality of climate change, while only 21 percent accepted it (no other network came close to those figures). Almost four times as many broadcasts on Fox claimed there was no consensus as accepted that one existed; the exact opposite was true on the other networks. A similar pattern was apparent when it comes to the issue of attribution. Fox was also selective about its guests, nearly half of which doubted the existence of climate change (about 40 percent accepted it). On CNN and MSNBC, the figures were 9 and 15 percent, which is much closer to the level of acceptance by the scientific community."
And as to whether this is a causal relationship:
"Over 40 percent of the self-identified Democrats sometimes watch Fox, while 17 percent of Republicans tune in to CNN and MSNBC. When the numbers for those viewers were broken out, two different trends were apparent. Among Democrats, it didn't matter how often they watched Fox; their acceptance of climate change remained roughly steady. Republicans who watched MSNBC and CNN, however, had a much higher acceptance than their peers who maintained a strict diet of Fox."
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