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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Media Today in the Slow Death of Journalism: One-Third of Americans Don't Know How the Supremes Voted on Health Care

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 12:33 PM

Despite all the media coverage of the Supreme Court's big vote on the Affordable Care Act, a new Pew Research study shows that thirty percent of Americans don't know how the court voted and fifteen percent think it overturned the act.

The ignorance is spread evenly between Republicans and Democrats (25% don't know), though independents are slightly more in the dark (31% don't know). More Rs than Ds think the court overturned the act (19% vs. 11%), but maybe we can blame that on a combination of wishful thinking and exposure to Bill O'Reilly and the gang, who made incorrect predictions. (Surprise, surprise.)

(Plus, CNN and FOX made mistakes in their initial reporting, which might have confused people.)

The real spreads are due to age and education:

There are substantial age differences in news interest in the decision, as well as in awareness of what the court decided. Only about quarter of those younger than 30 (24%) followed news about the court’s health care decision very closely. That compares with 42% of those 30 to 49 and majorities of those 50 to 64 (56%) and 65 and older (62%).

Just 37% of those younger than 30 know that the court upheld most of the law’s provisions; majorities of older age groups know that the court upheld most provisions. Majorities of those who have attended college answered this correctly, compared with 44% of those with a high school education or less.

The study says the healthcare decision was the biggest, most closely followed story this June. (Second place: the US economy. Third place: the 2012 election.)

Apparently the country's "most closely followed story" wasn't followed all that closely.

Via Poynter.

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Comments (14) RSS

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jeez....did they post the result in line out?

Posted by tainte on July 3, 2012 at 12:36 PM

So a good portion of the population are uninformed morons? Thanks for the heads up.

@1 Zing!

Posted by Rotten666 on July 3, 2012 at 12:43 PM

That's okay, there's people on some of the conservative blogs wondering how they appeal the decision. Um, who are they planning on appealing it to? The Extra-Supremer Court?

Posted by Geni on July 3, 2012 at 12:58 PM

And guess what - every single one of those people surveyed gets a vote. Ugh.

Posted by Catherwood on July 3, 2012 at 1:05 PM

Young people believe they are invincible and don't need health care.

Posted by MLM on July 3, 2012 at 1:18 PM

if you're such a non-citizen you weren't paying any attention in the 1st place, CNN/Fox's mis-reporting made no impact.

45% were ignorant or wrong. this country is fucked.

Posted by Max Solomon on July 3, 2012 at 1:25 PM

Did SLOG do anything to emphasize that it was a Bush appointee who made the difference and saved universal health care for Americans.

Did ya?

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on July 3, 2012 at 1:37 PM

@7

What do you mean? By using those exact words? Or by mentioning it in a post? Because I'm fairly sure the SLOG covered the event adequately for an internet blog that has an interest in but doesn't strictly cover politics.

But yeah...way too many people don't follow the news. I've heard a ton of people didn't know about the bag ban until it happened. Like, at all. How do you avoid that information unless you intentionally avoid talking about or taking in news on a regular basis?

Posted by Arsenic7 on July 3, 2012 at 1:46 PM

Most people don't even know what ACA is otherwise perhaps so many of them would not be against it. At some point proponents are going to have to make a stronger effort to inform the public of the benefits instead of just leaving it to the media (who only conduct polls and ask opinions rather than actually educate or inform the public).

Posted by sall on July 3, 2012 at 2:14 PM

A little insight into "Obama's" "universal health care":
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-…

Posted by Spindles on July 3, 2012 at 2:49 PM

Were these really mistakes by Fox and CNN? Or did they bank on that 15% of people who would hold on to their version no matter how loudly it was trumpeted as a "mistake"?

Posted by Daily in LA on July 3, 2012 at 2:57 PM

These are the people who decide our elections. And they decide on the basis of campaign ads and sound bites and image. And whoever has the most money to buy the most ads and the best sound-bite writers and the best image consultants gets their vote. Some democracy.

Posted by PCM on July 3, 2012 at 6:33 PM

@7: Most people who know anything about the court and the case know who the CJ is and that GWB appointed him. Are you implying we should be bowing our heads toward Crawford in prayers of thanks?

Posted by TLjr on July 4, 2012 at 10:21 PM

@7:

Yes, they quoted the SCOTUSblog with the statement that Robert's vote had saved the ACA.

Besides being dead wrong as usual Bailo, you do not even seem to have a point.

Posted by Theodore Gorath on July 5, 2012 at 6:25 AM