With shows like "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" airing regularly in America, the expectations for intellect are clearly lower than they once were. But with endless coverage of the election and political climate occurring throughout the major networks, the results of a new political survey paint an even more abysmal picture of education in the U.S.
The poll measured the political knowledge of 3,612
U.S. adults and was conducted by the Pew Research Center for
the People & the Press between April 30 and June 1. Participants were asked to name the controlling party of
the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. secretary of state and
Great Britain's prime minister.
Just 18 percent of participants answered all three questions correctly. Those answers being: Democrats, Condeleezza Rice, and Gordon Brown.
Even if you don't think British politics should play a role in the American political awareness game, it's still amazing to learn that just 44 percent of BBC viewers identified the prime minister correctly. Perhaps they were watching TV the way Sarah Palin does, with the volume all the way down?
All in all, 50 percent of survey participants knew that the Democrats have a majority in the
House, while 42 percent could identify the secretary of state. Under 30 percent knew who that guy with the British accent was.
In a litmus test for audience superiority, the Pew staff broke down the responses to the political survey according to what political shows the participants listened to and what magazines they read. ("All of them" was not an appropriate answer.)
Nearly half of regular readers of The New Yorker, The Atlantic and
Harper's Magazine answered all three political knowledge questions
correctly. But the real brainy ones were those who knew Gordan Brown. Only fans of The New Yorker, The Atlantic, NPR listeners, The Weekly Standard, The New
Republic, and viewers of "Hardball" named Gordon Brown a majority of the time.
NPR's audience emerged as the smartest of all, with 44 percent nailing all three brain busting questions. Sadly, only thirty-four percent of "The Colbert
Report" audience and 30 percent of "The Daily Show" audience got all
three questions correct. Colbert fans, be prepared to hear him roast Jon Stewart about this "edge."
Here's a detailed breakdown of the percentage of individuals answering
each of the three questions correctly from the different news
audiences
- The New Yorker/Atlantic: 71 percent (correctly identified
Democrats as the majority in the House), 71 percent (correctly
identified Condeleeza Rice), 59 percent (correctly identified Gordon
Brown)
- NPR: 73 percent, 72 percent, 57percent
- Hannity & Colmes: 84 percent, 73 percent, 49 percent
- Rush Limbaugh: 83 percent, 71 percent, 41 percent
- Colbert Report: 73 percent, 65 percent, 49 percent
- Daily Show: 65 percent, 48 percent, 36 percent
- NewsHour: 66 percent, 52 percent, 47 percent
- O'Reilly Factor: 70 percent, 60 percent, 41 percent
- C-SPAN: 63 percent, 59 percent, 35 percent
- Letterman/Leno: 51 percent, 42 percent, 31 percent
- CNN: 59 percent, 48 percent, 29 percent
- National Enquirer: 44 percent, 32 percent, 22 percent
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