In O'Reilly's defense (shudder -- I never thought I'd hear myself saying THAT), he was supposedly only kidding when he made that remark. But yes, Fox News viewers tend to be less educated than those who watch Daily Show (kind of a no brainer considering many Daily Show audience members ARE college students). However, there are a couple of things to consider here.
First, I know people without education who are smart, and people with education who are dumb. Still, education can give one a greater ability to understand the ways that news can be "spun," to recognize when O'Reilly is using false, circular logic, to understand the greater historical, economic, political ramifications of events, etc. It is arguably easier to BS an uneducated person on the "facts" then an educated one.
Another problem is of course bias, not only of the media source, but of the audience as well. Many Fox News viewers watch Fox News because it validates their world view. They might even argue that Fox News isn't biased to the right, that it is fair and balanced, because that would make them fair and balanced in the views they share with people like O'Reilly.
So the truth or the facts aren't as important as spinning events to support a general ideology or dogma. Or, say, support a war.
Finally, and perhaps most disturbingly, all of this is moot. To paraphrase the movie Gladiator, "He panders to the mob, and the mob are the real power in Rome."
It would be nice to believe that people vote, or make decisions, based on educated facts and logic and reason. But then, if that were true, W. probably wouldn't be in office, and we might not have been bum-rushed into a war in Iraq ill prepared.
No, the masses are moved more by emotions than reason, by fear than logic, by deeply rooted beliefs than deeply researched facts. And politicians and pundits, preachers and product pushers on all sides rely on that to manipulate and control the mob.
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