CNN Flunks News Test

We’ve been saying for a quarter-century that Americans are Aggressively Ignorant: It’s not that they can’t handle the truth, they just don’t want to know it. Fox News exploits that information gap, not by being deliberately misleading — well, lying, to be honest about it — but by telling its audience what they want to hear. First rule of business: Find a need and fill it.

CNN, on the other hand, still styles itself “The Most Trusted Name in News”. Which makes this one of the most self-damning headlines they’ve ever run:

CNN Poll: Americans flunk budget IQ test

In particular, this item was getting some attention Friday:

According to our poll the public estimates that the government spent five percent of its budget last year on public television and radio.

Not even close. The real answer is about one-tenth of one percent.

Not even close! Stupid, stupid public! Where do you pick up such foolish ideas, anyway?

We don’t have Jon Stewart’s squad of interns to review every second of coverage the past few weeks since the O’Keefe video put NPR in the crosshairs, but let’s see what we can find at the CNN Transcripts site by searching all their news programs for NPR stories…

The Situation Room, March 8, 6pm:

The House Republican budget passed last month would eliminate funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2013.

PAUL FARHI, “WASHINGTON POST”: NPR has — is part of the public broadcasting establishment that is attempting to preserve the relatively small amount that it gets from the federal government.

American Morning, March 9, 6am:

The House Republican budget passed last month would eliminate funding the corporation for public broadcasting by 2013.

CNN Newsroom, March 9, Noon:

The House Republican budget passed last month would eliminate funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2013.

PAUL FARHI, “WASHINGTON POST”: NPR has — is part of the public broadcasting establishment that is attempting to preserve the relatively small amount that it gets from the federal government.

CNN Newsroom, March 9, 3pm:

The House Republican budget passed last month would eliminate funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2013.

The Situation Room, March 9, 6pm:

BLITZER: Does all of this sort of further imperil public radio funding, public broadcasting’s funding from Congress, including NPR?

TODD: There are a lot of people who believe it does. And you know, on the video, as you recall, Ron Schiller says that NPR would be better off without federal funding. NPR execs have repudiated that, saying they need federal funds. But this has given ammunition to House Republicans who want to cut them off. The Republicans passed a budget last month that would eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

John King USA, March 9, 7pm:

Now, in the scope of the big federal budget deficit we’re not talking about a lot of money here, but conservatives say it’s important to make a principled stand here. Here’s what we’re talking about. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets about $420 million of your tax money right now. It gives that money out to local public radio stations and local public TV stations.

Piers Morgan Tonight, March 9, 9pm:

MORGAN: Coming up, the scandal that’s rocking NPR. And why your money is at stake…

MORGAN: Would it be easier if the NPR simply wasn’t funded by the government?

SHEPARD: Well, certainly not right off the bat. And NPR is not funded by the government. The 900 public radio stations I mentioned are funded by — they get about 90 million dollars a year. And then those public radio stations are members of NPR. They pay for NPR’s programming.

CNN Newsroom, March 17, 9am:

House Republicans plan to vote today on taxpayer money for National Public Radio. Some say NPR shouldn’t get a dime from the government. In truth, it doesn’t get much money. Just $50 million. Local radio stations use that money to buy programming from NPR. If they don’t get that money, no “Morning Edition” or “All Things Considered” for their listeners.

If you skipped past all the blockquotes — and good for you, budgeting your time like that! — the only recent day CNN paid substantial attention to NPR was March 9. If you watched all day, you might have caught a soundbite from WaPo’s Paul Farhi about the “relatively small amount that [NPR] gets from the federal government”. You would have heard repeatedly that “the House Republican budget passed last month would eliminate funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by 2013”.

And watching the eight recent CNN segments that covered NPR, only once would you have heard the key point: “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets about $420 million of your tax money right now.”

Which is really only half the point, as far as the CNN poll is concerned: None of the segments mentioned the contextual nugget that the federal budget is $3.5 trillion.

So if Americans don’t know shit about the federal budget, we think we know why: They didn’t learn it by watching you.